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Preface
In over half a century of cultural journalism, as a member of few literature festivals juries, and with tireless readings of whole poetry series, I had the chance of discovering some Romanian poets of the generations following World War II, who wondered me with a frisson of delight. Some obediently confirmed the test of time, others unfortunately got lost on the way. And, frankly, I was sorry.
The bizarre times came during and after the so called 1989 Revolution when the Romanian culture did pass and still does through literary vortexes, this Brownian movement is indeed baffling. Just when I thought this dangerous morass was about to take over, I realized ipso facto that I was part of a Revelation. It is exactly what happened to me when Daniela Cupşe (maiden name of Daniela Apostoaei) sent over the Atlantic to me her poetry series “Blue Embrace”, so I would be the curator and help publishing it - oh my God, what a small world the Planet Earth has become, as Marshall McLuhan said, “a global village”! - and surprised beyond belief I realized that I was holding in my hands the work of a poetess inspired by gods, yet so far hidden in a shell of an unjustified modesty, dedicating her carrier here and there to papers in Maramureş county, Romania, her birth place, and medieval town of Târgovişte - where we were colleagues for a while in the same Press Trust, thinking that I knew her, and yet I had no idea of her poetic grace - nowadays in the maple leaf country, province of Alberta, where she lives in an exile by choice.
All of a sudden, not long ago she decided to confront her poetic destiny and to accept it. As they say “never say never“, Daniela Cupşe asked me to give her a collegial viii
friendly hand and support her lyric public quest in which she dared to step into. I did not think twice and I did it as they say in Law with celerity - she is also a graduate of Law. I only did it after her poetry totally conquered me, her modern meta-phrasing writing being wrapped into a blue velvet of longing.
She is sapphic and engaged to a passionate and graceful erotism alike the ancient Bilitis, the love lyric of Daniela Cupşe remembers us of Mihai Eminescu’s magic feelings, her poetry being covered into an emotional aura of mystery. The Sunset was carrying the city on its hind / while you were drawing question marks on my temples / Then gingerly you polished a sizzling tear / framing it into a crying icon / So much that I wanted you to stay!... a calligraphy of persuasive surprise that is Daniela Cupşe. She is the One that comes. And like myself the readers will have the revelation. I take full responsibility and I announce on my own knowledge the rise of an exceptional poetess in the Romanian writers’ new millennium. It is up to her to walk the path and keep convincing us all. I welcome her by all means into the Agora of the Romanian literature.
George Coandă, PhD in Literature
Full Member of the American-Romanian Academy
of Arts and Sciences, California, USA
Introduction
It is with great honor and appreciation that I am writing this introductory note for Daniela Cupșe’s volume of poems, “Blue Embrace”. I am completely touched by Daniela’s request and grateful for the chance I have been offered to read her poetry, to allow myself to get wrapped in her love ballads and the mesmerizing depths of her anima. I am confident that readers will enjoy the journey into the deep meanders of a sensitive soul and its labyrinthine drifts.
What are poems? A poem is a piece of writing, a song in verse, rhythmical in different ways, rhyming or not, using a variety of figures of speech. Poetry is somewhat different. If poems can be read and analyzed, mainly at a cerebral level, poetry is about feelings and the intensity given to their impression; it is emotional and it’s felt. One doesn’t read poetry. It’s meant to be felt in one’s heart. The reader lives and relives the sentiments, the passion that the author tried to transpose in verses.
Daniela Cupșe’s poems take the reader into a deep realm, beyond the horizon, as is it is in fact poetry to which Daniela gives birth from the inner depth of her heart, of her soul, from the blue skies reflecting on the blue abyss of the ocean, sometimes stormy, sometimes tranquil. The blue embrace of two hearts, and the blues coming from profound, ensconced feelings of love and sadness, at times hidden, other times rebuffed, buried, tumultuous or silent. Concealed feelings of a painful yet cherished love come to life in verses such as northern frozen grasses where, in just three words, the reader can find a whole intensity of meanings, from the coldness and icy frozen north to the hope of grasses, albeit frozen, yet in anticipation of coming alive.
Deep dark abyss versus the suns, crowns of water lilies and xii
thorns (Together), charcoals versus frosty night as in Story for Ana, as well as torrid and blue fall (Fall Meditation), are just some of the metaphors rendering images of contrast where dark and light, pain and hope come together, melting in the abyss of the soul.
Daniela is - in a way - offering the reader the chance of taking a journey into the depths of ardor and despair, of her inner self, through rhetorically doubtful questions, playing with words, exposing her suffering, loneliness, desires, longing, in sublime expressions, unexpected combinations of words, inviting to guessing, to identifying oneself to the seasons of her heart.
Blue Embrace, as the title of the book as well as that of a poem, brings together in an unexpected embrace the shivering chills of the cold seasons (the fall with its colorful palate, and the winter, both being the most prominent throughout Daniela’s poems), along with the liveliness and optimism of Spring and Summer, which are less present in her poems but vivid nevertheless. Inanimate objects come to life through elusive yet effective personifications:
The lament of my steps / tediously moving on alleys covered by empty hours (Solitude); The Sunset was carrying the city on its hind / Fields are growing into my hands (Birthplace); The two skinny poles were clicking in a tempo with tens of seasons / petting my numbly body / carving deep holes / desperation was dragging its own shadow (Bethesda).
If Daniela’s poems written in the romantic and musical Romanian language offer the reader the opportunity to immerse himself/herself in a world of reverie and introspection, it is fair to add that the translator’s refined command of English matches the original Romanian version.
Codruț Miron’s translation and adaptation show not only a subtle yet defined mastery of the English language, but xiii
also a special sensitivity, a specific level of understanding the poetess’s feelings like chords on a harp, vibrating at the same frequency and with a similar intensity, giving birth to a perfect harmony, in a unison of hearts. The translator’s selection of words and expressions as well as the combinations of figures of speech and crafty inversions give Daniela’s poetry the same meaning, thus preserving the resonance of the verses, the musicality of the lyrics. Codruț Miron’s translation in English offers the reader the same level of profundity, as the author intended in her native tongue, Romanian.
Codruț Miron’s artistic talent does not stop at literary level. It is fair to mention that the graphic of the two covers is also his work of art, as evocative as the poems themselves. It is widely known that a picture is worth a thousand words, and indeed, the front cover renders a sublime image of the author’s feelings expressed in verses throughout the book.
I invite the reader to stop for a few minutes to admire the front cover and then try putting together the picture and the title of the book, and find its disguised, elusive, thoughtful meaning, an embrace of two souls, rejecting or embracing the blues of some unspoken love, living parallel lives on parallel
