Reviews

Carmen Bugan is a Romanian born poet and an academic. In her book of thematic essays, Poetry and the Language of Oppression, she begins with a poem, followed by this introductory sentence: “To my knowledge, no poet ever changed the course of history, but many dictators did.”

My father liked to quote Lin Yutang, a popular sage of the 30’s: “Patriotism is the memory of the good things you had to eat as a child.” In this sense, the Romanian-born poet Carmen Bugan is a patriot, though Lilies from America, her collection of new and selected poems just out from Shearsman, never waves the Romanian flag.