Ioana Ieronim, a Romanian poet, playwright, essayist and translator, is the author of The Triumph of the Waterwitch
(translation Adam J. Sorkin, Bloodaxe, UK), shortlisted for the Sir Weidenfeld Prize, Oxford. It also appears in a German Edition Brueckengasse ohne Ufer (translated by Dagmar Dusil). She has also published several bilingual editions of verse: Triumful paparudei/Fool’s Triumph (translation Georgiana Fârnoagă & Sharon King); 41; Escalator/Scara rulantă. Dragon Kites Over the Mountain/Zmeie peste munte, as well as collections of lyrics in English: Lifeline as a Skyscraper and Tempo Rubato. Online volumes include Omnivorous Syllables; Silabe omnivore; The Lens of a Flame, lyrics published in the US, UK, Israel, Hungary, France, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Albania, Iceland, Spain, and Turkey. She has translated Romanian poetry into English, with Adam J. Sorkin and Sean Cotter, and has translated foreign poetry finto Romanian, including volumes by Andrei Codrescu (translated with Carmen Firan), Fiona Sampson, Amir Or, and Agi Mishol (translated with Riri Manor). Lately interested in theater as a playwright and essayist, her versions from Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and newer drama are in the current repertoire in Romania. She was Romania’s Cultural Attaché to Washington DC (1992–96), then the Fulbright program director in Bucharest. She is a member of the Writers’ Union and a member (also former secretary) of the PEN Club, Romania.
Carrie Messenger’s translations from Romanian have appeared most recently in The Literary Review, Poetry International, Beloit Poetry Journal, Circumference, and the anthology Words without Borders: the World through the Eyes of Writers. Her essays have appeared in Barrelhouse and Ecotone, and her stories have appeared in magazines including Cream City Review, Redivider, and Witness. She teaches at Shepherd University in West Virginia.
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Verbe
verbe nobile intransitive: Textul pur care-ţi poartă grija
fie cu tine, călător pe unghiul de refracţie
al unui timp ambiguu
ere în şir, până când
pământul devine extraplat
până ce ai probat toate motivele şi consecinţele
sensul nu mai îngăduie nici o risipă
şi te revolţi
şi o iei de la cap
Verbs
noble intransitive verbs: pure Text that takes care of you
existing with you, a traveler on the refracted angle
of an ambiguous time
epochs in a row, until
the earth becomes extraflat
until you've tested all motives and consequences
once more reason no longer allows even a little extravagance
and you're aroused to indignation
and you take it again from the top
Cântec de leagăn
a căzut viteazul la zidurile Tebei şi a muşcat ţărâna
a căzut şi mult l-au jeluit femeile nibelunge
a căzut viteazul, retezat de sabia frăţească
suplă lucitoare ca luna cea nouă
a căzut viteazul a muşcat ţărâna proaspătă din tranşee
a căzut roşind pământul la Moisei
primejdia a şlefuit picioarele gazelei în alergare
spune poetul – PRIMEJDIA
e seară, citeşti terţine din trecento
pe continentul vecin
vitejii cad muşcând ţărâna
Cradle Song
the hero fell at the wall of Thebes and he bit the dust
he fell and the Valkyries deeply mourned
the hero fell, struck down by the fraternal blade
supple bright as a new moon
the hero fell and bit into the fresh soil of the trenches
he fell, reddening the earth at Moisei
danger exhausted the limbs of the fleeing gazelle
the poet says — DANGER
it's evening, you're reading terza rima from the Trecento
on the neighboring continent
heroes fall biting the dust
A fi tu însuţi
oare mâine vei mai recunoaşte conturele propriei dorinţi, coralii cristalini ai resentimentelor, arboreal încrederii? Vei cunoaşte pământul rotund drept turtit cilindric înconjurat de cercuri poliedre elipse androgine? Îţi vei aduce aminte că pustia a fost învinsă pâna la spini şi quasari (dar vine ea din urmă vine)? Vei mai şti că doar maxima precizie va deschide Porţile Domneşti -- fie şi în specia ta de timp ce merge obtuz înainte
şi singură Indiferenţa
e fără iertare?
To Be Yourself
Really tomorrow will you still recognize the contours of your own desires, resentment's coral crystals, the trusting trees? Will you know the round right flattened cylindrical earth surrounded by circles polyhedrons androgynous ellipses? Will it remind you that the desert was invincible until the thorns and quasars (but it comes from behind, from behind it comes?) Will you still be sure that only maximum precision opens the Heavenly Gates -- or in your species of time that obtusely goes ahead
and only Indifference alone
is without forgiveness?