It would seem that an integral part of our mortality is our capacity to not know. To a divine observer, this may be viewed as intriguing but to us mere mortals this capacity to not know can only be internalized as a burden. A burden that flares through the human experience like fire and inspires us to stir the alchemy of our existence as we search for meaning. Perhaps it is this labour…this creative twirling through the chaos imbedded in our lives that nurtures the heroic hope we have: that regardless of what we do not know, the act of reaching for what we can only imagine but cannot hold, is the way to fulfilment.

Ilya Tourtidis was born in Greece in 1949. He moved to Australia when he was four years old and to Canada when he was fifteen. Educated at the University of Victoria, he worked as a teacher and later as a School Counselor in the Comox Valley where he now resides. He was Co-winner of the Gerald Lampert Award in 1994 for his first book of poems, Mad Magellan's Tale. A subsequent collection of his poetry, The Spell of Memory was published in 2004. This was followed by a further collection, Path of Descent and Devotion, published in 2009. In addition to poetry, Ilya Tourtidis also writes screenplays, novels, and children's stories.

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In his poetry, Tourtidis speaks not only for himself but for all of us. He grapples with life and death and the labyrinthine mind, tuning in all the antennae of the self in search of meaning. Even in doubt and despair his poetry marches forward in cadence. And though he knows it is futile, he turns to language to reveal the mysteries of being.

Ed Varney, Poet