Nichita Stanescu (1933 - 1983) Nichita Stanescu was born in 1933 in Ploieşti (Ploy-esht), a Romanian city of oil refineries, to a Romanian peasant and a Russian mother. With a childhood during the war and teenage years during his country’s adjustment to a new Communist system, for Stanescu, homeland and language were intimately connected. That is to say, his words are best understood through knowledge of his country. In 1952 Stănescu moved to Bucharest to study linguistics and literature, and lived there the rest of his life. In 1960 he became editor of Gazeta literară and published the first of his fifteen books of poetry, The Sense of Love. In 1979 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is a poet who uses words not only as words but as objects; although Stanescu’s logic is familiar, his images are dark and are drawn from a culture largely unknown to the English world. Scroll down for these poems by Nichita Stanescu:       POEZIA / POETRY       TIMPUL CA LUMINA / TIME AS LIGHT Lecţia despre cub / A lecture on the cube * Lecţia despre cerc / A lecture on the circle * * First published in CIRCUMFERENCE (www.circumferencemag.com) Summer/Autumn 2004 issue. About the translators: Stelian Apostolescu was for many years a professor of mathematics and physics at the University of Bucharest. His Ph.D thesis is in Nuclear Physics: "The Upper Limit of the Electric Dipole of the Neutron." A translator into English for several Romanian poets, Apostolescu admires Nichita Stanescu's understanding of science and mathematics and his philosophical transcendance of mere factual knowledge.     Poet JoAnne Growney  has been a mathematics professor, but currently devotes her time to poetry. In addition to translation of Stanescu, JoAnne has assisted Radu Doru Cosmin in translation of Sora mea de dincolo / My Sister Beyond, by Bucharest poet, Ileana Malancioiu (2003, Paralela 45) and LEAD OF WINTER (PLUMB DE IARNA) a bilingual collection of work by Romanian symbolist poet George Bacovia, translated by Radu and Growney, published by Criterion Publishing (2002), Norcross GA. Growney’s poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines, recently in Out-of-Line, BigCityLit, and Hanging Loose.   Gabriel Prajitura was born in Romania; he earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Tennessee and currently is a professor in the mathematics department at SUNY Brockport. He has translated work by Romanian poet Gellu Naum into English and has translated the work of many English-language writers (including Kerouac, Strand, Codrescu and Cheever) into Romanian.
POEZIA Poezia este ochiul care plange Ea este umarul care plange ochiul umarului care plange. Ea este mana care plange ochiul mainii care plange. Ea este talpa care plange ochiul calcaiului care plange. O voi, prieteni, poezia nu este lacrima ea este insusi plansul plansul unui ochi neinventat, lacrima ochiului celui care trebuie sa fie frumos, lacrima celui care trbuie sa fie fericit.	POETRY Poetry is the eye that weeps It is the shoulder that weeps the eye of the shoulder that weeps. It is the hand that weeps the eye of the hand that weeps It is the weeping sole the eye of the weeping heel. O, you friends, poetry is not tears it is the act of weeping— weeping from eyes not yet created, tears from the eyes of him who should be handsome, tears of him who should be happy.
Timpul ca lumină 1. Orice obiect, după distrugerea criteriilor lui interioare, involutiv se transformă în lumină. Orice obiect este o formă de lumină oprită într-o structură. 2. Funcţia principală a obiectelor este absorţia. Atîta timp cît forţa de absorţie depăşeşte forţa de ejecţie, obiectul se află în formare, în creştere. Gravitaţia reprezintă suma absorţiilor obiectelor reunite într-un cîmp cosmic. 3. Forme de gravitaţie sau de absorţie se pot remarca şi în domeniul semi-abstract al limbii. Atragerile şi respingerile reciproce între grupurile de cuvinte le-au transformat pe acestea treptat-treptat în substantive şi verbe, cu tot roiul de nuanţe înconjurătoare. 4. Starea de absorţie exprimată prin sentimente corespunde stării de mirare. Starea de ejecţie exprimată prin sentimente corespunde stării firescului. Starea mirării poate produce sublim şi spaimă. Firescul este o stare luminoasă. 5. Mirarea opreşte timpul, iar firescul, dimpotrivă, îl declanşează. Timpul este de fapt lumină. În acest sens, unitatea cea mai mică de timp este fotonul. 6. Luminescenţa putregaiului dintr-o pădure, copil fiind, m-a pus pe ginduri. Starea lui de vis mi-a dat un sentiment ciudat. Mai tîrziu mi-am imaginat lumina ca fiind starea de dinainte de naştere şi starea de după moarte. Imitînd o formulă a lui Coanda: “omul este un accident hidraulic”, aş zice: “omul este un accident al luminii”. În acest sens am putea considera lumina solară ca pe o stare prenatală, ca pe un timp neorganizat într-o structură. 7. Somnul echilibrează absorţia cu ejecţia. Face evidentă starea discontinuă a lucidităţii, deci a existenţei. Timpul se dezorganizează în perioada somnului. Lumina devine interioară, devine sentiment, transformîndu-se în lucioli. 8. Însăsi existenţa, ca somn al luminii, face evidentă discontinuitatea acesteia şi deci a timpului. În acest sens putem să socotim existenţa ca pe o cuantă de timp. 9. Interiorul fotonului ţine esenţa universului: timpul. Transformarea luminii în existenţă şi transformarea existenţei în lumină, aşa cum mi-o închipui acum, poate fi o metaforă. Dar dacă nu e numai o metaforă? 10. Mă întreb dacă luminescenţa aceea nocturnă dintr-o pădure a copilăriei era o naştere sau o moarte. Dacă era o încetinire de lumină pînă la transformarea ei, închegarea ei în simţuri, sau dimpotrivă, dacă era distrugerea de organe emanînd lucioli de vis. 11. Timpul este lumină. Dar lumina, ce este lumina?	Time as Light 1. Any object, when its internal benchmarks are destroyed, melts into light. Any object has light inherent in its structure. 2. The main function of objects is absorption. As long as the absorption force surpasses the force of emission, the object keeps forming, growing. For all objects, gravitation is the sum of their absorptions, united as a cosmic field. 3. One can observe forms of gravitation or absorption in the semi-abstract field of language. Reciprocal repulsions among groups of words have changed them bit by bit into nouns and verbs with a profusion of surrounding hues. 4. An absorbing state expressed in terms of feelings corresponds to a state of wonder. An emitting state expressed in feelings corresponds to normality. A state of wonder can cause awe and terror. Normality is a luminous state. 5. Wonder stops time, and normality, to the contrary, releases it. Time is, in fact, light. In this respect, the smallest unit of time is the photon. 6. The glow of decay in a forest, while I was a child, affected me, put me in a dream state that felt weird. Later, I imagined that light is the state prior to birth and the state after death. Paraphrasing a formula of Coanda : « man is a hydraulic accident », I would say : «  man is a luminous accident  ». In this respect we might consider solar light as prenatal life, like time not yet structured. 7. Sleep creates equilibrium between absorption and emission. It gives evidence of the discontinuity of Lucidity, i. e., of existence. Time grows less organized during sleep. The light becomes internal, becomes feeling, changes itself into luminosity. 8. Existence itself, as light’s sleep, offers evidence of its own discontinuity, that is, of time. In this respect one can consider existence as a quanta of time. 9. A photon contains within itself the essence of the Universe : time. Transformation of light into existence or existence into light, as I see it now, may be only a metaphor. But what if it ceases to be a metaphor ? 10. I ask myself whether that nighttime glow in the forest of my childhood was a birth or a death. Whether it was a delay in light’s transformation, its recognition by the senses, or was, to the contrary, the decay of organs radiating halos. 11. Time is light. But light? What is light ?
Lecţia despre cub Se ia o bucată de piatră se ciopleşte cu o daltă de sînge, se lustruieşte cu ochiul lui Homer, se răzuieşte cu raze pînă cubul iese perfect. După aceea se sărută de nenumărate ori cubul cu gura ta, cu gura altora, şi mai ales cu gura infantei. După aceea se ia un ciocan şi brusc se fărîmă un colţ de-al cubului. Toţi, dar absolut toţi zice-vor: -Ce cub perfect ar fi fost acesta de n-ar fi avut un colţ sfărîmat! din volumul Operele imperfecte 1979	A lecture on the cube You take a piece of stone, chisel it with blood, grind it with Homer’s eye, burnish it with beams until the cube comes out perfect. Next you endlessly kiss the cube with your mouth, with others’ mouths, and, most important, with infanta’s mouth. . Then you take a hammer and suddenly knock a corner off. All, indeed absolutely all will say what a perfect cube this would have been if not for the broken corner! from the collection Imperfect Works, 1979
Lecţia despre cerc Se desenează pe nisip un cerc după care se taie în două cu acelaşi băţ de alun se taie în două. După aceea se cade în genunchi, după aceea se cade în brînci. După aceea se izbeşte cu fruntea nisipul şi i se cere iertare cercului. Atît. din volumul Operele imperfecte 1979 Return to Romanian Poetry Page	A lecture on the circle You draw a circle in the sand and then halve the circle with the same hazelnut stick. Next you fall to your knees, then to all fours. Then you hit the sand with your forehead and apologize to the circle. That’s all. from the collection Imperfect Works, 1979 Return to JoAnne’s Home Page