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Ana Blandiana is one of Romania’s foremost poets, a leading dissident before the fall of Communism. Over the years, her poetry became symbolic of an ethical consciousness that refuses to be silenced by a totalitarian governments. This new translation combines five of her collections, three of protest poems from the 1980s followed by her two collections of love poetry. The poems of Predator Star (1985) and The Architecture of Waves (1990) chronicle a convulsed history and pose the question of how to resist the terror of history. Clock without Hours (2014) marks a return to rhyme, as Blandiana attempts a courageous renovation of traditional verse forms. Her fiercely militant voice – that helped inaugurate the postmodern idiom in Romanian poetry in 1984 – has modulated over time into a new tone of forgiveness and renunciation, expressed in meditations on the fragility and vulnerability of being. She has also written two collections of love poems which rank among the most beautiful in contemporary Romanian poetry – October, November, December (1972) and Variations on a Given Theme (2018) – the second of these composed after the death of her husband, Romulus Rusan, in 2016. A prolific and expansive poet, Ana Blandiana constantly re-invents herself. Her work ultimately reflects on universal issues, on human existence itself in our 21st-century consumer society.
- GenresPoetry
352 pages, ebook
Published April 12, 2022
2 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
Ana Blandiana
126 books188 followersAna Blandiana, pe numele ei civil Otilia Valeria Coman, (n. 25 martie 1942, Timișoara) este o scriitoare și luptătoare pentru libertate civică în România. Înainte de revoluția din 1989, faimoasă disidentă și apărătoare a drepturilor omului, a avut curajul să-l înfrunte direct pe dictatorul Nicolae Ceaușescu prin declarații publice în interviuri acordate postului de radio Europa Liberă și unor publicații din străinătate.
Ana Blandiana s-a implicat în viața civică printr-o serie de acțiuni în cadrul Alianței Civice. În prezent conduce Memorialul de la Sighet, un institut de studiere a crimelor comunismului, cu un centru de cercetare care organizează anual conferințe, sesiuni științifice și expoziții pe tema fenomenului totalitar.
Otilia Coman s-a născut la Timișoara, ca fiică a preotului ortodox Gheorghe Coman, originar din Murani, Timiș. După retrocedarea Ardealului de Nord în 1944 familia Coman s-a mutat la Oradea, unde tatăl poetei a slujit ca preot la Biserica cu Lună, catedrala ortodoxă din Oradea. După instaurarea regimului comunist în România preotul Coman a fost arestat ca "dușman al poporului". Ca fiică a unui deținut politic, a trebuit să aștepte patru ani până când autoritățile comuniste i-au permis înscrierea la Facultatea de Filologie din Cluj.
Pentru a ocoli șicanele regimului, Otilia Coman și-a luat pseudonimul Ana Blandiana, după numele satului natal al mamei, respectiv Blandiana, Alba.
Tatăl poetei a murit într-un accident de mașină în anul 1964, la scurt timp după eliberarea din detenția politică.
După absolvirea facultății, Ana Blandiana a debutat în revista Tribuna din Cluj.
De-a lungul anilor, poeta a întreprins — ca invitată a unor universități, academii, organizații culturale — mai multe călătorii de documentare și studiu în diverse țări europene și a participat la congrese și festivaluri de poezie. În afara volumelor menționate, i-au mai apărut grupaje de poeme în reviste și antologii din Anglia, S.U.A., Italia, Spania, Franța, Belgia, Germania, Austria, Olanda, Finlanda, Polonia, Ungaria, Bulgaria, Cehoslovacia, Brazilia, Cuba, Turcia, Siria, Grecia, China, Japonia, Israel, Albania. După 1989, acestor traduceri li se adaugă eseurile literare și articolele de analiză politică apărute în marile ziare germane sub semnătura Anei Blandiana, ca și nenumărate conferințe, lecturi publice, interviuri, intervenții la colocvii, simpozioane și mese rotunde în principalele țări europene.
Premiul pentru poezie al Uniunii Scriitorilor din România, 1969; Premiul pentru poezie al Academiei Române, 1970; Premiul pentru proză al Asociației Scriitorilor din București, 1982; Premiul Internațional "Gottfried von Herder", Viena, 1982; Premiul Național de Poezie, 1997; Premiul "Opera Omnia", 2001; Premiul Internațional "Vilenica", 2002.
Ana Blandiana s-a implicat în viața civică printr-o serie de acțiuni în cadrul Alianței Civice. În prezent conduce Memorialul de la Sighet, un institut de studiere a crimelor comunismului, cu un centru de cercetare care organizează anual conferințe, sesiuni științifice și expoziții pe tema fenomenului totalitar.
Otilia Coman s-a născut la Timișoara, ca fiică a preotului ortodox Gheorghe Coman, originar din Murani, Timiș. După retrocedarea Ardealului de Nord în 1944 familia Coman s-a mutat la Oradea, unde tatăl poetei a slujit ca preot la Biserica cu Lună, catedrala ortodoxă din Oradea. După instaurarea regimului comunist în România preotul Coman a fost arestat ca "dușman al poporului". Ca fiică a unui deținut politic, a trebuit să aștepte patru ani până când autoritățile comuniste i-au permis înscrierea la Facultatea de Filologie din Cluj.
Pentru a ocoli șicanele regimului, Otilia Coman și-a luat pseudonimul Ana Blandiana, după numele satului natal al mamei, respectiv Blandiana, Alba.
Tatăl poetei a murit într-un accident de mașină în anul 1964, la scurt timp după eliberarea din detenția politică.
După absolvirea facultății, Ana Blandiana a debutat în revista Tribuna din Cluj.
De-a lungul anilor, poeta a întreprins — ca invitată a unor universități, academii, organizații culturale — mai multe călătorii de documentare și studiu în diverse țări europene și a participat la congrese și festivaluri de poezie. În afara volumelor menționate, i-au mai apărut grupaje de poeme în reviste și antologii din Anglia, S.U.A., Italia, Spania, Franța, Belgia, Germania, Austria, Olanda, Finlanda, Polonia, Ungaria, Bulgaria, Cehoslovacia, Brazilia, Cuba, Turcia, Siria, Grecia, China, Japonia, Israel, Albania. După 1989, acestor traduceri li se adaugă eseurile literare și articolele de analiză politică apărute în marile ziare germane sub semnătura Anei Blandiana, ca și nenumărate conferințe, lecturi publice, interviuri, intervenții la colocvii, simpozioane și mese rotunde în principalele țări europene.
Premiul pentru poezie al Uniunii Scriitorilor din România, 1969; Premiul pentru poezie al Academiei Române, 1970; Premiul pentru proză al Asociației Scriitorilor din București, 1982; Premiul Internațional "Gottfried von Herder", Viena, 1982; Premiul Național de Poezie, 1997; Premiul "Opera Omnia", 2001; Premiul Internațional "Vilenica", 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 30, 2021
“Ana Blandiana is one of Romania’s strongest candidates for the Nobel Prize. A prominent opponent of the Ceaușescu regime, Blandiana became known for her daring, outspoken poems as well as for her courageous defence of ethical values. Over the years, her works have become the symbol of an ethical consciousness that refuses to be silenced by a totalitarian government. This new translation combines five collections, three of protest poems from the 1980s followed by her two collections of love poetry. The book also includes four poems published in the journal “Amfiteatru” in 1984 – which also appeared in The Independent in the UK – which brought about her second publication ban in Romania under Ceaușescu.
The “Amfiteatru” poems marked a turning point and radicalisation of her lyrics, as well as of Romanian poetry in general. These poems and those of “Predator Star” (1985) and “The Architecture of Waves” (1990) chronicle a convulsed history and pose the question of how to resist the terror of history. The poet’s personal destiny ceases to be a concern, while collective history becomes her obsession. “The Architecture of Waves” was the last book she wrote under Ceaușescu’s dictatorship and the first to escape censorship. It continues the themes of the poems of “Amfiteatru”, analysing national history and national identity in the light of historical symbols, myths and the folklore of Romanian literature such as the ballad 'Miorița' and 'The Master Manole'.
“Clock without Hours” (2014) brings together postmodern postulations and a simplicity that surpasses literary currents. Stylistically the volume marks a return to rhyme, as Blandiana attempts a courageous renovation of traditional verse forms. Her fiercely militant voice, that more or less inaugurated the postmodern idiom in Romanian poetry in 1984, has modulated over time into a new tone of forgiveness and renunciation, expressed in meditations on the fragility and vulnerability of being. The poems in “Clock without Hours” decry impersonal human communications via Facebook "likes", and the sense of alienation and depersonalisation of human beings in our time. This is a book about Time with a capital T, concerned with death, salvation, and escape from materiality. Blandiana reflects on the twilight of the spirit, the accelerated erosion of matter, and the evanescence of being.
A prolific and expansive poet, Ana Blandiana constantly re-invents herself. She has distinguished herself not only by her subversive poems of protest with a political bent, poems that speak from the heart of the Romanian people about their suffering and lack of freedom, but also as a poet who addresses life at the millennium. Her work ultimately reflects on universal issues, on human existence itself in our 21st-century consumer society. Yet finally, despite her inimitable public sensibility, her most characteristic, moving, and enduring voice resonates in her poems immersed in the mysticism of love, poems which are included in this volume.
Blandiana has also written two collections of love poems which rank among the most beautiful in contemporary Romanian poetry – “October, November, December” (1972) and “Variations on a Given Theme” (2018) – the second of these composed after the death of her husband, Romulus Rusan, in 2016. Like Verlaine, who aspired to pure poetry, and Mallarmé, who sought the supreme idea, Blandiana in her love poetry continues to explore the mystery of articulating the language of the inexpressible. “October, November, December” depicts love as both a state of mystical delirium and a reflection of the mysterious process of poetic creation itself. “Variations on a Given Theme” (2018) is an elegy that renews the genre. Both engage in dialogue across time.”
The “Amfiteatru” poems marked a turning point and radicalisation of her lyrics, as well as of Romanian poetry in general. These poems and those of “Predator Star” (1985) and “The Architecture of Waves” (1990) chronicle a convulsed history and pose the question of how to resist the terror of history. The poet’s personal destiny ceases to be a concern, while collective history becomes her obsession. “The Architecture of Waves” was the last book she wrote under Ceaușescu’s dictatorship and the first to escape censorship. It continues the themes of the poems of “Amfiteatru”, analysing national history and national identity in the light of historical symbols, myths and the folklore of Romanian literature such as the ballad 'Miorița' and 'The Master Manole'.
“Clock without Hours” (2014) brings together postmodern postulations and a simplicity that surpasses literary currents. Stylistically the volume marks a return to rhyme, as Blandiana attempts a courageous renovation of traditional verse forms. Her fiercely militant voice, that more or less inaugurated the postmodern idiom in Romanian poetry in 1984, has modulated over time into a new tone of forgiveness and renunciation, expressed in meditations on the fragility and vulnerability of being. The poems in “Clock without Hours” decry impersonal human communications via Facebook "likes", and the sense of alienation and depersonalisation of human beings in our time. This is a book about Time with a capital T, concerned with death, salvation, and escape from materiality. Blandiana reflects on the twilight of the spirit, the accelerated erosion of matter, and the evanescence of being.
A prolific and expansive poet, Ana Blandiana constantly re-invents herself. She has distinguished herself not only by her subversive poems of protest with a political bent, poems that speak from the heart of the Romanian people about their suffering and lack of freedom, but also as a poet who addresses life at the millennium. Her work ultimately reflects on universal issues, on human existence itself in our 21st-century consumer society. Yet finally, despite her inimitable public sensibility, her most characteristic, moving, and enduring voice resonates in her poems immersed in the mysticism of love, poems which are included in this volume.
Blandiana has also written two collections of love poems which rank among the most beautiful in contemporary Romanian poetry – “October, November, December” (1972) and “Variations on a Given Theme” (2018) – the second of these composed after the death of her husband, Romulus Rusan, in 2016. Like Verlaine, who aspired to pure poetry, and Mallarmé, who sought the supreme idea, Blandiana in her love poetry continues to explore the mystery of articulating the language of the inexpressible. “October, November, December” depicts love as both a state of mystical delirium and a reflection of the mysterious process of poetic creation itself. “Variations on a Given Theme” (2018) is an elegy that renews the genre. Both engage in dialogue across time.”
April 29, 2022
"Who could have invented
a hell without demons,
Except for those tormenting themselves?"
from A Hell
This collection combines five of Ana Blandiana's collections going back to 1972. Blandiana is a Romanian poet who was a dissident during the Romania's communist dictatorship. As I was reading her work I was reminded of Anna Akhmatova and the poet as witness.
Three of the collections here are of protest poems and two are of love poems. The first three are Predator Star (1985), The Architecture of Waves (1990) and Clock without Hours (2014). The two love poems collections, which have a mystical edge to them, are October, November, December (1972) and Variations on a Given Theme (2018).
My favourite poems were in Variations on a Given Theme which were written after the death of her husband Romulus Rusan. They're meditations on love and grief and often focus on her ongoing dialogue with her dead husband. Asking questions about eternity.
"How can I rebel because I can't find you again, when rivers also move?"
They are beautiful, personal, spiritual and thoughtful poems that take her own personal grief and reach for universal questions. They were magnificent.
The other poetry is great, sometimes allusive (and illusive), but as I've said often when reviewing poetry I can't always explain in a cold academic way why I like poems. It is the way language frames meaning and emotion that really decides whether I like a poem or not. I don't even necessarily have to understand it to get something out of a phrase or line.
Translating poetry must be an absolute nightmare. It's adding an additional layer of fiendish complexity on the already difficult process of translation. But Paul Scott Derrick and Viorica Patea's translation feels 'right' to me. I'll never know, of course. I don't speak Romanian. And even if I did the odds of me being able to translate a poem from Romanian into English in a way that doesn't kill it are almost zero. I'm neither linguist or poet so one has to rely on people who know what they're doing.
"The leaves are falling,
Lighting up the universe
With their all-consuming aura
Of parallel worlds.
Do you have seasons too
In which
Beauty is a pogrom?"
from Variations on a Given Theme
a hell without demons,
Except for those tormenting themselves?"
from A Hell
This collection combines five of Ana Blandiana's collections going back to 1972. Blandiana is a Romanian poet who was a dissident during the Romania's communist dictatorship. As I was reading her work I was reminded of Anna Akhmatova and the poet as witness.
Three of the collections here are of protest poems and two are of love poems. The first three are Predator Star (1985), The Architecture of Waves (1990) and Clock without Hours (2014). The two love poems collections, which have a mystical edge to them, are October, November, December (1972) and Variations on a Given Theme (2018).
My favourite poems were in Variations on a Given Theme which were written after the death of her husband Romulus Rusan. They're meditations on love and grief and often focus on her ongoing dialogue with her dead husband. Asking questions about eternity.
"How can I rebel because I can't find you again, when rivers also move?"
They are beautiful, personal, spiritual and thoughtful poems that take her own personal grief and reach for universal questions. They were magnificent.
The other poetry is great, sometimes allusive (and illusive), but as I've said often when reviewing poetry I can't always explain in a cold academic way why I like poems. It is the way language frames meaning and emotion that really decides whether I like a poem or not. I don't even necessarily have to understand it to get something out of a phrase or line.
Translating poetry must be an absolute nightmare. It's adding an additional layer of fiendish complexity on the already difficult process of translation. But Paul Scott Derrick and Viorica Patea's translation feels 'right' to me. I'll never know, of course. I don't speak Romanian. And even if I did the odds of me being able to translate a poem from Romanian into English in a way that doesn't kill it are almost zero. I'm neither linguist or poet so one has to rely on people who know what they're doing.
"The leaves are falling,
Lighting up the universe
With their all-consuming aura
Of parallel worlds.
Do you have seasons too
In which
Beauty is a pogrom?"
from Variations on a Given Theme
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews