Treading Water

David E. Kemp is head of the Drama Department at Queen’s University.

Radu’s sweeping novel Distant Relations dealt with love, anger, and
betrayal. These elemental traits of human behavior can be found in
Treading Water, his latest collection of poetry.

Radu’s style is strong, angular, and generally accessible. He shares
with the best poets the ability to compel the reader to focus on his own
particular truth. Whatever subject he is dealing with is endowed with a
certain grandeur of vision; his poems hint strongly at having a meaning
over and above what appears to be their specific subject. This is
especially true of the splendid poem “A Day at the Beach,” which,
ostensibly concerned with a random collection of archetypal
leisure-seekers, has a depth of illumination with respect to the human
condition that is quite remarkable. Poems like “Jocasta” and
“Shadows” have a classical sensibility but remain instantly
accessible to the average reader.

The shorter poems gave this reader the greatest pleasure. “Tiger
Tiger” is both beautifully controlled and superbly structured. “The
Titanic,” a powerful poem of the cruel sea, is full of color and
mysticism, while “Bird-Watcher” is simplicity itself, yet deeply
moving and tragic, the epitome of what a good poem should be.

This is a stimulating collection by a poet fully versed in his craft,
who allows his words and thoughts to reach us in a direct and totally
truthful way.