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Flood Warning by Berta Freistadt
ISBN 0 907123 94 5, 36pp. A5, £4.50, Five Leaves Publications, Po Box 81, Nottingham, NG5 4ER, , www.fiveleaves.co.uk.

Berta Freistadt understands that what makes poetry different to prose is the way in which it uses language. Part One of her passionate book mainly explores relationships with women in poems that, erm, pant a little. Nothing wrong with that. Other themes occur, too, such as the link between the moon and madness. A little hoary that seam, but in this part I especially liked

We in prison watched / for her shadow / light, shadow / listened and learned / and told lies. / If we had our tongues still. 
                                                                              (Moon Watch)

There is some levity too, among all the earnestness.

I dreamt you went / to Ecuador / and didn’t stop to tell me / you left on golden toes / your raggy coat / trailing in the breeze  
                                                                                 (Ecuador)    

Part Two is about the experience of being Jewish, and consists of two long, meditative poems. I much preferred the second, written in the charged style of epic fable

And it was dry. Always dry. / The word parched became more / dreaded than starved and was / at first forbidden. We thought / to deny the word would be / to forget the worst. But little children / would still cry; thirsty! thirsty! thirsty! 
                                                                   (A Question of Maps)