Reading A House of White Rooms is like strolling through a house of memory, where every poem, every page, is another white room. The writing is lyrical, spare, inventive - it will take you through family, through love, through history and bring you to a place where memory is reality.

Whether Tsiriotakis is wandering the foothills of Greece or the valleys of love, her language is fresh and thoughtful; she rolls it around on your tongue as though it were at the same time profoundly familiar and completely foreign. Rich and dense as baklava, smooth and sharp as olive oil, Tsiriotakis's poetry is absolutely unforgettable.

The first collection from a new voice in Toronto poetry.

'To read Helen Tsiriotakis is to know the scalding appetites of morning without recourse to shade ... Dear reader, take the exquisite risk.' – Robert Kroetsch.

Helen Tsiriotakis is a first-generation Greek-Canadian of Cretan heritage. Her first collection of poetry, A House of White Rooms, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Helen Tsiriotakis was born in Toronto, where she currently lives. She has also live in Crete, where she worked as an E.S.L. teacher and a translator. A House of White Rooms is her first book. She is currently at work on a novel.

Helen Tsiriotakis' profile page