Romanian Suite

James Deahl is co-publisher of Mekler & Deahl Publications and the
author of Under the Watchful Eye.

This suite of poems on Romania starts at the beginning: the quarrel
between God and the devil. (The devil, it turns out, has had a lot to do
with the country’s violent history.) Radu then moves on to Vlad the
Impaler, who saves Europe from the Turks, and Count Dracula, whose
interest in sex and death continues to fascinate. The devil, Prince
Vlad, and Dracula are undeniably vivid figures, but Radu does little
with them beyond poetic play with their more infamous characteristics.

He does somewhat better with the evil Romanian of our time, Ceausecu.
With the exception of “The Nurse’s Lullaby,” however, most of the
contemporary pieces read like poeticized newspaper accounts, leaving
little doubt that they trace their origins to newspapers rather than to
the living experience of the poet. More effective are the poems about
music. The high point of the suite is the contrast drawn between
pianists Lipatti and Lupu and the mazurkas of Chopin on the one hand,
and the brutal dictatorship on the other.

Radu makes use of three poetic forms: free verse, the prose-poem, and
formalist structures. One wishes he had opted exclusively for
prose-poetry, a form that avoids the odd stanza breaks and jolting
enjambments that sometimes mar his other pieces.

The book ends with hope for the future. Given the Romania depicted by
Radu, can this be anything but wishful thinking?