Singing for troubled times

The book is framed by two poems - 'Contract' and 'When I Was Still a Poet'

Towards the end of this book, the narrator of one of the poems is advised to “find the poets” when she wants to “find the truth” about how Greece — a place she describes as “where everything was born / and now / ...seems as if it could vanish”. She is, unfortunately, unable to find any poets. Even when she meets a sandal seller, whom she suspects might be a poet, she hears nothing of poetry from him but of his money problems and the uncertain future of his children. But it is not a poem of despair; on the