Testament - Anthology of Romanian Verse - English language only

Daniel Ionita

• Publisher: change2improve pty ltd
• Year: 2016
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780995350212
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

DANIEL IONITA

TESTAMENT

ANTHOLOGY OF ROMANIAN

VERSE

American Edition

Copyright © 2016 Daniel Ionita

[email protected], Daniel Ionita

This volume contains a large selection of poems translated by the

authors for Testament - Anthology of Modern Romanian Verse -

bilingual edition Romanian /English published by Minerva Publishing

House in 2015

ISBN 978-0-9953502-1-2

DANIEL IONITA

TESTAMENT

ANTHOLOGY OF ROMANIAN

VERSE

American Edition

Edited and translated by DANIEL IONITA

Assisted by Eva Foster, Daniel Reynaudand Rochelle Bews

Sydney, 2016

For the love of poetry, which,

transcending culture and language,

reveals humanity’s soul.

Preface to the American edition

A Golden Dowry of Poetry

The word ‘Testament’ sounds

ultimate and grave. It creates a kind

of tension doubled by curiosity. Some

are awaiting it with joy, hoping they

will be included, others with the

dread that they would be left out.

Those who are not mentioned in the

testament will never forgive you.

Those you included may not forgive

you either – because they expected more. The same applies to

anthologies. Maybe this is why Daniel Ionita has chosen Testament as

the title for his collection of Romanian poems in translation – a word

which is both strong and challenging. Or maybe he took into

consideration what we Romanians leave behind to English language

readers of poetry, as well as to the generations of children of

immigrants who, sooner or later, will want to know more about the

place where their ancestors came from, about its poetry and the spirit

of a space in which some buried their roots, and others transplanted

them in a foreign soil.

Whatever the motivation, an anthology is a difficult undertaking, a

complicated construction in which some are walled in so that others

can fly, some have their wings burned and others have the sky open

above them. Only the architect and the builder, both embodied in the

anthologist, will know how much pain and work hide behind such an

edifice which, if you are a creator yourself, can push your own projects

back for a long time. As an author of anthologies myself, of Romanian

and American volumes, also published in the United States, I was in

the shoes of he who raises resentment rather than gratitude, but that did

not spoil my joy of giving something back to the Romanian literature

which formed me.

There are not many comprehensive anthologies of Romanian poetry in

English, and of those already published, there are few which stand out

and are known. Daniel Ionita’s Testament –Anthology ofRomanian

Poetry, now in its second edition, is a comprehensive volume, offering

a panorama of reference for Romanian poetry, from the classics to the

younger poets of today. The volume pays respect to the laws of

consequence. No important name is forgotten. On the other hand,

among the selected, there are lesser known authors, different voices,

some unexpectedly fresh, which, by being associated with the masters,

thus gain significance.

This present volume is conceived for the American space, with a

selection of poets slightly different from the second edition, including

some important poets who migrated to the United States (Ștefan Baciu,

Nina Cassian, Liliana Sârbu, Nuța Istrate Gangan, Adrian Sângeorzan,

Carmen Firan) and Canada (Dumitru Ichim). Also, for this volume, the

author has renounced the earlier bilingual versions and this anthology

is published only in English. The poems are presented chronologically,

in the order of the birth year of the poets: there are no bio sketches of

the poets, there is no thematic grouping, the volume does not follow

some literary current and the author does not follow current literary

politics from Romania. It is a gesture of freedom and courage from a

humanist dedicated to humanity, who, far from his country of birth, is

planning for immortality through poems which marked his youth and

sweetened his exile.

Testament is not just a collection of poets and poems with

documentary value; rather, it is an anthology with testamentary value!

The poems are chosen by an idealist – a rare species these days – an

avid reader of poetry in general, and a lover of the beauty of the

Romanian language in particular. Daniel Ionita appears as a late

romantic with good taste, a stylist in love with musicality as such, a

modern traditionalist who feels the need to save the dowry chest of the

ancestors and to make it accessible in a large-currency language,

English, firstly to the lovers of poetry conversant with it, but also to a

fu...

Table of contents

• title_page
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