Friend or foe, do not reveal this anywhere. I stand here, bound by internal words, persuaded.

"The Poet will inevitably come into conflict with society or the group sooner or later, and will follow – fundamentally – one of the three paths: Either he will criticize governments and party leaders, or he will retreat into his glass tower, or he will compromise and become a conformist... For me, true Poets are those who choose the first path. I am even willing to say that I consider all those who, as Kant roughly states, 'possess a mind and have the courage to use it without guidance from anyone,' potential poets." Aris Alexandrou from an interview with Renos Apostolidis, magazine Images, 1959

Aris Alexandrou begins his literary journey as a poet at the age of 24 with the collection Still This Spring (1946), and continues to write poems throughout his brief life, marked by exile, imprisonment, disillusionments, and self-exile.

Eighty explosive poems, the "milestones of a journey" according to the poet, from political activism to the rejection of all dogmatism, which remain relevant, illuminating, sometimes ironically, the cracks in human anguish.