Romanian suite

In linked poems of great individual power, Kenneth Radu addresses the matter of Romania, the country of his ancestors, summoning figures from myth, distant and recent history, and the arts. The cast of characters includes Dracula, Prince Vlad the Impaler, and the devil -- all related to Ceausescu himself -- as well as an immigrant and his wife, and the great Romanian pianists Dinu Lipatti and Radu Lupu, and a bride who courageously battles the devil for control of her wedding. These interweave with a narrator in the present -- a gardener-pianist -- to create a long poem that is both an exorcism and a celebration, an enactment of the human capacity to survive and regenerate spiritually.