When the Tunnels Meet: Contemporary Romanian Poetry

by John Fairleigh (editor)

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology of poems is a joint endeavor between Romanian and Irish poets. There no particular theme or style but the political repression in Romanian history comes through several of the poems. Some poems use irony, such as Cezar Baltag-Derek Mahon's "The Unicorn in the Mirror" ("A mirror is the gate/ where a white horse confronts a white horse.") Some poems are wistful as in Ana Blandiana-Seamus Heaney's "Do you Remember the Beach":

"...I would look on
with a kind of desperate elation
As your feet marked the sea,
The sea that would close like an eyelid then
Where I waited and looked."

Some of the poems seek relief from humdrum existence or from unsavory duties. In Mircea Cărtărescu-Medbh McGuckian's "My Everyday Dream", the narrator wishes

"Never to have to make a decision
no one's well-being ever depending on you;
oh tender, white and loving cage,
in which to live free!
//
...Yes--
everybody has their happiness.
And this is mine--
a snug bedroom
in a snowed-up forest."

In Mihai Ursachi-Paula Meehan's "Imperium", the narrator envisions

"Here, we have peace beyond understanding. We surely have peace.

The wild plum tree has cast its blossoms to your feet,
an angel has sown the whole hillside with flowers,
The ones we call Immortelle. Every year
a red field poppy blooms in my heart. Night has fallen
and the wild plum tree has cast down its blossoms.
The fathomless sea guards the white silences
and all our speech has drowned."

Irony as a way to relieve anxiety about chance in life and death is seen in Marin Sorescu-Paul Muldoon's "Chess", in which the narrator and his opponent cancer make moves on a chess board, and in their "Symmetry", in which they humorously remake Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" to accommodate the narrator's consistently taking the wrong fork in the road. I recommend this anthology of Romanian poetry, all of whose poems say something significant.