My Dog – the Soul: poems by Floarea Țuțuianu

Not my body, not my soul, but my sex at the word’s heart

my strong point

    

My Dog – the Soul (Câinele meu – sufletul) gathers a dozen of Țuțuianu’s poems, many of them in dialogue with Emily Dickinson as an ancestral woman poet. Unlike Dickinson, however, Țuțuianu is a writer of smouldering (often sizzling) sexuality; she identifies herself with both the word in itself and the flesh in the form of the female body, figuratively pregnant with poetry. Țuțuianu’s lyrical imagination reveals an earthy, voluptuous, yet also ironic set of confrontations and dichotomies between the erotic and the religious, and her lines bristle with a detailed sensuality and a provocative intelligence. “Oh Lord God,” she prays, “let me stay woman / I want to be Leda the swan between my legs.” 

 The Romanian poet Floarea Țuțuianu [her surname is pronounced “Tsu-tsu-ya'-nu”] graduated from the Nicolae Grigorescu Institute of the Fine Arts in Bucharest and began publishing poetry only after the 1989 overthrow of the communist government. She has produced five books of poetry: The Fish Woman (Femeia pește, 1996); Libresse oblige (1998); The Lion Mark (Leul Marcu, 2000); a selected volume with new poems, The Art of Seduction (Arta seducției, 2002); and Your Magnificence (Mărinimia Ta, 2010). Țuțuianu works as a graphic designer at the Romanian Cultural Institute Publishing House in Bucharest, where she lives. Her artwork (the title-page contains an example from one of her drawings) has been exhibited in Germany, Italy, England, Poland, the United States, and Israel, as well as in Romania.

My Dog – the Soul  by Floarea Țuțuianu (with translations by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Gianetti) is a softcover chapbook (28pp, $19.50) published by Cold Hub Press.  www.coldhubpress.co.nz

ISBN 978-0473-18878-8