Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and the poet
DEEP by Daniel Ursache
THE LIGHT BARKS, resurrects
Me.
Licks me on the mouth,
Only a tiny drop of
Honey could still
Last.
A crumb, a needle, the savvy
Will sew me, will sew
Me.
DRAG THE LINES to the river,
Make a crackling fire verse upon
Verse,
Kill your
Poem,
Love your language like
Yourself.
I CARRIED THE VERSE inside me,
Nauseous, with its added
Kilos, with its birth defect I
Loved
It.
I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH STRENGTH to move the
Letters. I, the blank page,
Shield of light –
My poem is the ruin of a Greek temple.
My poem is a constellation of scars.
My poem is a murder.
The voice has been stolen, a golden fleece.
Cells, manna for the moths,
The light has its seeds in me!
MY BLOOD IS the feather of the bird Simurgh.
My face has been folded and
Forgotten.
My breath is the river Kausar.
The sunset drips down from my feet.
My country’s policy is night.
My country said to me:
Your poems are whores.
You mustn’t look upon them:
The silence swallows asps.
My country said to me:
Your birth is a car crash.
I write in Romanian:
My mouth is a stolen veil.
WHITE SKY,
Like marrow:
I am stone. The birds strike against me
Until I give
Milk.
My voice is a reed.
And I chew:
Branch after branch,
The spring.
POET'S STATEMENT:
I don’t use masks, make-up, in poetry; I’m not part of any poetical generation, I don’t like that kind of categorization and labeling. I define myself with every word I write, and I want to capture the word’s authority to speak out loud and clearly about itself. About its truth, shadows, vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Poetry must cure disguise, must break bourgeois walls. Poetry is about the process of ripening, it’s not an escapism but is about being awake. I have the knife to cut into the poem and dig, looking for its inner truth and emotion; going after the poem’s heart and its individuality. I see and feel my poetry as a tower under siege, as an exile. I love the errors, the defects of poems – for me, poetry is like a message in a bottle, a voyage, a biopsy of reality, body and language. I see too much rationality in poetry today, too much control, too many dark corners to hide from our authentic parts and feelings, too much impersonality. We have to have courage to write, to expose ourselves, and the vision to transfigure reality.
Medeea Iancu was born on August 23. She studied Theater Directing in Cluj-Napoca. She made her debut in poetry with the book Divina Tragedie (“The Divine Tragedy”), Timișoara, Brumar Publisher, 2011; the book was honored with the Marin Mincu and Radu Săplăcan prizes and The Young Poet of the Year award within the Young Writers Gala.
