Angela Marinescu — whether writing under her real name, Angela Marcovici, or the pseudonym of Basaraba Matei — is a touchstone in contemporary Romanian literature. Born in 1941, she has authored more than 15 volumes of poetry in her transgressive landmark style. Although she published her debut, the poetry collection Blue Blood, when she was 28, the poet’s recognition as a literary giant came late in her career, partly due to the influence she exercised on younger generations of Romanian poets writing in the 2000s. Her confessional, direct verse, and powerful, often dark images, came in contrast with the more opaque and abstract mainstream poetry written during communism. The poems below were translated by American, Bucharest-based poet Tara Skurtu, and were first published in Plume magazine.
a literary critic wrote some
thirty years back
i have an inner strength
and would succeed
until the end
to convince
i haven’t convinced anyone
and i have no inner strength
other than when i fight
for nothing like how it is
all poets believe in friends
as they do God
only i don’t believe
and so i fight and don’t have friends,
well, maybe some women
but the story of women
doesn’t count, is something else,
a cold world beyond an even colder world,
and me, i’m frightened by men
as friends, and still
they attract me
like a glass of vodka
infected with blood
My throat
pulsates
with pleasure
when I see
true
art
I am
oligophrenic
because I believe in
nothing but
poetry
and oligophrenics
are uninhibited
and throw themselves
into
sex