“The weight of the rain /  fell pitilessly / on his woollen coat / and the winter became unbearable / upon his shoulders” evokes the poem, which titles this collection of lyrical and philosophical poetic distillates. The themes are diverse; impositions and oppositions, they negotiate life and death, love and Eros, devotion and betrayal, joy and sorrow, hope and despair, foresight and negligence, light and darkness. The poet’s melodic free verse, the encapsulation of her reflections, and the economy of words earn this book a special place in Contemporary Poetry.

Professor Emeritus of the University of Athens Marios Byron Raizis highlights “the undeniable epigrammatic quality of these poems. In a few lines they impart meanings garnered through experience. As always, the poet’s language is real, yet graceful and alive,without surrealistic incongruities. The sentiment is genuine and refined, articulated with simplicity and purity.”

The Greek literary critic-scholar-writer Antonis Tziotis notes that these are “pithy poems with a painstaking rhythmic articulation, a fruitful and accessible depth of thought, conceptual image construction and an apt expressive simplicity. They hold within their nuclei life messages, a philosophical stance, and a decryption of man’s innermost needs. The poet’s strikingly meticulous yet effortlessly unpretentious language-jewels contribute decidedly to the reader’s enjoyment of poetic writing as a quality of mature thought expressed with aesthetic tenderness.”

To date Roula Ioannidou Stavrou has received six international awards for her literary work from different cultural bodies.

…the poet’s language is real, yet graceful and alive, without surrealistic incongruities. The sentiment is genuine and refined, articulated with simplicity and purity.

Marios Byron Raizis, Professor Emeritus of the University of Athens

…they hold within their nuclei life messages, a philosophical stance and a decryption of man’s innermost needs.

Antonis Tziotis, Greek literary critic-scholar-writer