Publication Date: March 15, 2026
Paperback, 112 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-38-3
“What do you collect?” Like the hoarding uncle described in one of her poems, Lucia Cherciu has collected a lifetime of experience from her native Romania to her adopted America and transmuted it into poetry. Or perhaps more aptly, “translanguaging” as she expresses the process of thought at the intersection of tongues, where “My love language / is dusting.” Dedicated to and inspired by the life and art of painter Betty Ross (whose portrait of the author graces the cover), her poems celebrate the art of, and in, living. “God, let me keep what I love,” she implores, and here she both keeps and shares all that matters most in her life.
Praise for Lucia Cherciu & Geraniums in the Studio
Lucia Cherciu’s Geraniums in the Studio is rich in flowers, fruit, and trees—in nature, in art, and in the memory of the emigrant who longs for home. “Immigrant” reads in its entirety, “All those cups of coffee / I should have drunk /with my mother, // all those orchards / I should have walked through/with my father. // Send some money home.” Raised in Romania during the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu, Cherciu writes, “My computer figured out / I want to buy a black dress / after I already bought a black dress // and now tempts me with black dresses.” She writes, “My neighbor has a TV as wide as the whole back of the house. // When the leaves fall, I could place a chair in my yard/and watch golf all day.” She plants trees in that yard, a big garden. This book is a bountiful harvest.
—Suzanne Cleary, author of The Odds
I am moved by Geraniums in the Studio partly because I knew Betty Ross, the extraordinary woman and painter to whom the book is dedicated. These are eloquent poems of friendship and memory, honoring art so deeply that “Even the grocery list is a love poem, a prayer.” Lucia Cherciu explores the life of making and discovering, connections and losses. “A poem is a letter sent over a grave,” she writes. As an immigrant from Romania, she knows the double life of language and dream. As a true poet, she leaves us “feasting on sagacity and stories.”
—David Mason, former poet laureate of Colorado, author of Cold Fire & other books
Geraniums in the Studio is a collection that invites us into a world rich in imagery and tales of family, nature, and friendship. Lucia Cherciu’s poems share the intimacy of daily experiences through varied landscapes of memory: from her garden to meditations on her homeland, Romania. In this volume, the gifted artist Elizabeth Ross (1936-2021) sits alongside the reader as a wise and benevolent presence, invoked by poems that bring Ross’s art, creative spirit, even the light in her Colorado home, to life. In one of many memorable lines, Cherciu declares: “Create your own table.” For us, her gathering of deeply-lived and deeply-considered moments provides a language of abundance and tenderness where we can linger for many hours.
—Joanna Roche, art historian and author of Then. Now. If & Tyrannical Angels & Other Love Poems
About the Author
Lucia Cherciu writes both in English and in Romanian and is the author of six books of poetry, including Immigrant Prodigal Daughter (Kelsay Books, 2023), Train Ride to Bucharest (Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), a winner of the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2015), Lalele din Paradis / Tulips in Paradise (Editura Eikon, 2017), Altoiul Râsului / Grafted Laughter (Editura Brumar, 2010), and Lepădarea de Limbă / The Abandonment of Language (Editura Vinea, 2009). She served as the 2021-2022 Dutchess County Poet Laureate, and her work was nominated multiple times for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She teaches English at SUNY/Dutchess Community College.
Publication Date: March 15, 2026
Paperback, 112 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-38-3
“What do you collect?” Like the hoarding uncle described in one of her poems, Lucia Cherciu has collected a lifetime of experience from her native Romania to her adopted America and transmuted it into poetry. Or perhaps more aptly, “translanguaging” as she expresses the process of thought at the intersection of tongues, where “My love language / is dusting.” Dedicated to and inspired by the life and art of painter Betty Ross (whose portrait of the author graces the cover), her poems celebrate the art of, and in, living. “God, let me keep what I love,” she implores, and here she both keeps and shares all that matters most in her life.
Praise for Lucia Cherciu & Geraniums in the Studio
Lucia Cherciu’s Geraniums in the Studio is rich in flowers, fruit, and trees—in nature, in art, and in the memory of the emigrant who longs for home. “Immigrant” reads in its entirety, “All those cups of coffee / I should have drunk /with my mother, // all those orchards / I should have walked through/with my father. // Send some money home.” Raised in Romania during the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu, Cherciu writes, “My computer figured out / I want to buy a black dress / after I already bought a black dress // and now tempts me with black dresses.” She writes, “My neighbor has a TV as wide as the whole back of the house. // When the leaves fall, I could place a chair in my yard/and watch golf all day.” She plants trees in that yard, a big garden. This book is a bountiful harvest.
—Suzanne Cleary, author of The Odds
I am moved by Geraniums in the Studio partly because I knew Betty Ross, the extraordinary woman and painter to whom the book is dedicated. These are eloquent poems of friendship and memory, honoring art so deeply that “Even the grocery list is a love poem, a prayer.” Lucia Cherciu explores the life of making and discovering, connections and losses. “A poem is a letter sent over a grave,” she writes. As an immigrant from Romania, she knows the double life of language and dream. As a true poet, she leaves us “feasting on sagacity and stories.”
—David Mason, former poet laureate of Colorado, author of Cold Fire & other books
Geraniums in the Studio is a collection that invites us into a world rich in imagery and tales of family, nature, and friendship. Lucia Cherciu’s poems share the intimacy of daily experiences through varied landscapes of memory: from her garden to meditations on her homeland, Romania. In this volume, the gifted artist Elizabeth Ross (1936-2021) sits alongside the reader as a wise and benevolent presence, invoked by poems that bring Ross’s art, creative spirit, even the light in her Colorado home, to life. In one of many memorable lines, Cherciu declares: “Create your own table.” For us, her gathering of deeply-lived and deeply-considered moments provides a language of abundance and tenderness where we can linger for many hours.
—Joanna Roche, art historian and author of Then. Now. If & Tyrannical Angels & Other Love Poems
About the Author
Lucia Cherciu writes both in English and in Romanian and is the author of six books of poetry, including Immigrant Prodigal Daughter (Kelsay Books, 2023), Train Ride to Bucharest (Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), a winner of the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2015), Lalele din Paradis / Tulips in Paradise (Editura Eikon, 2017), Altoiul Râsului / Grafted Laughter (Editura Brumar, 2010), and Lepădarea de Limbă / The Abandonment of Language (Editura Vinea, 2009). She served as the 2021-2022 Dutchess County Poet Laureate, and her work was nominated multiple times for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She teaches English at SUNY/Dutchess Community College.
