Unsold Flowers

First published in Woodnotes #29, Summer 1996, page 47.

Unsold Flowers by Ion Codrescu. Hub Editions, 1995, 50 pages, paperback, 4½ by 8 inches. $7.00 postpaid from Hub Editions, 11 The Ridgway, Flitwick, Bedfordshire, England MK45 1DH [address no longer correct]. These 82 poems (including 22 tanka) by haiku-whirlwind Ion Codrescu (he seems tireless in writing and promoting haiku!) appear at a spacious pace of two per page, interspersed by seven of the author’s own brushwork illustrations. Each poem appears in Romanian and English, with accomplished translations into English by the poet’s wife, Mihaela Codrescu. Here are two of many fine selections:

snow melting—

the cat’s prints

bigger and bigger

Easter evening—

the old woman gathers

her unsold flowers