Dragă Cristina,
Nu aş putea să explic, tehnic vorbind, cum am ajuns să scriu aceste poeme din Metode simple de încetinire a timpului. Aş prefera mai degrabă să nu uit că manuscrisul a fost pierdut într-un avion şi regăsit miraculos, ceea ce mie îmi spune ceva important în termeni poetici despre aventura plină de înţeles a oamenilor şi a lucrurilor pe firul vieţii. Ele au venit firesc cumva în călătoriile din ultimii doi-trei ani în care am avut grijă să am mereu un carnet de note la mine. Am scris şi pe telefon sau pe laptop, dar prefer hârtia şi pixul, instrumente cumva mai spectaculoase, în termenii inspiraţiei, când stai, să zicem, la o terasă lângă o cafea şi un pahar de vin undeva într-un oraş străin. Tu ştii că între motivele definitorii ale himerismului, cum ar fi călătoria, transfigurarea, identitatea multiplă şi tristeţea-boală provocată, poate, de înstrăinarea paradoxală într-o lume tot mai familiară, se infiltrează din când în când şi aceste – cum să le numesc? – nuclee sau secvenţe în care încerc să arunc o privire asupra lumii şi epocii noastre cu durerile ei concrete, care sunt de fapt doar nişte biete aluzii la evenimente recente legate, de exemplu, de terorism, cum apar în Numitorul comun al morţii, sau nişte conexiuni ale memoriei cu oameni reali via Facebook, cum am scris în O epocă peste aşteptări, sau chiar referinţe destul de clare la România noastră încă ameţită de succesiunea de regimuri şi guvernări ostile, cum se regăsesc în O ţară de milioane, Marca secretă şi Alegeri la limită, sau nişte trimiteri fulgurante la obsesia acestor timpuri pentru succes şi performanţă, cum se vede în Mulţumirea cu mai nimic, sau, în fine, instantanee ale unor contraste dintre zgomotul de fond al turismului şi stările foarte subiectiv-personale ale personajelor, ca în Nişte oameni din Est. În toate s-ar putea găsi şi un fir de revoltă, acoperit însă cumva de limitele artei poeziei, care în mintea mea – îţi voi mai fi spus aceasta – nu se potriveşte cu niciun fel de exagerare sau exaltare indiferent de ce natură ar fi. Prefer discreţia şi stilul aluziv care sunt mult mai puternice în termeni emoţionali-poetici. De fapt, nici nu este o alegere. Mă las şi eu condus de propriile stări, încercând să înţeleg cât mai mult din ceea ce mi se întâmplă. Cu gândul cel bun şi încrederea că poezia are chei nebănuite pentru multe impasuri, Vasile |
Dear Cristina,
It would be difficult for me, technically speaking, to explain how the poems in my volume Simple methods to slow down time came about. I would instead prefer to remind myself that the manuscript was lost on a flight then miraculously returned to me. This, I believe, speaks volumes about the poetic adventure that people and objects experience sometimes in life. The poems evolved somehow naturally over the last couple of years, in my travels, as I kept writing in my notebook. I write on my mobile phone and my laptop as well, but I favour pen and paper, the wondrous tools that seem utterly appropriate when I sit at a table, with a coffee and a glass of wine, somewhere in a strange city. You know that among the defining elements of chimerism – such as imaginary journey, transfiguration, identity, parallel realities and a sadness-disease inflicted, perhaps, by a perplexing deracination in an increasingly familiar world – random fragments or episodes insinuate themselves from time to time into my thoughts. They seem to materialise as I try to peer into the troubles of our world, of our times, which are, in the end, nothing but pitiful innuendos about recent events linked, for example, to terrorism, as described in The common denominator of death, or some associations between memory and people via Facebook, as I wrote in An age above expectations, or even explicit references to my country Romania, still confused by the rapid succession of bitter regimes and governments, as expressed in A country of millions, The secret brand and Life on the edge, or some fulgurating allusions to our obsessive desire for success and performance, as depicted in Content with very little, or, finally, snapshots of disparity between the background noise of tourism and the travelers’ inner, subjective emotions, as portrayed in Some people from Eastern Europe. A touch of revolt permeates these poems*, but it is somehow sheltered within the constraints of poetry, because, as I would have said to you before, poetry does not sit well with any kind of exageration or grandeur. I prefer discretion and expressiveness, as these are more powerful means to transcend into an emotional-poetical stasis. In fact, this is not even a choice, for they are my guiding force as I try to make sense of everything that is happening around me. With good wishes and trust that poetry holds mysterious keys to many predicaments, Vasile Translation © Cristina Savin 2019 |
Numitorul comun al morţii
Vasile Baghiu Crizele din interior se arată mereu,
* O epocă peste aşteptări Nici tristeţea cântecelor vechi * Marca secretă Ai observat, atunci când ne gândim așa
|
The common denominator of death
Vasile Baghiu Inner troubles always rush, * An age above expectations Even the sadness of old songs
* The secret brand Did you notice, when we think about Translation © Cristina Savin 2019 |
Vasile Baghiu is a Romanian poet who has published eight volumes of poetry, several novels, volumes of fiction and short stories and essays. Baghiu began his working life as a nurse in a tuberculosis sanatorium. After seven years, he came across Gustave Flaubert’s travel diary, which inspired him to imagine what it would be like to move away from the sanatorium and to travel the world through a fictitious alter ego, later named Himerus Alter, a ubiquitous character residing in a parallel reality. Based on this idea, Baghiu coined the term chimerism – a cross between bovarysme and literature, defined as a tendency to escape everyday realities and to create a parallel universe, a counter-reality in which one lives. Baghiu developed and thoroughly explained the term in his Four Manifestos of Chimerism. Baghiu works as a teacher in his native Romania. He is currently preparing a new volume of poetry.
Cristina Savin lives in Melbourne where she works as a translator. She is currently doing a PhD in Translation Studies at Monash University. Cristina is the translator into English of two novels by French author Marie Lion and an article on the French explorer Nicolas Baudin. She also translates Romanian literature into English. Her work has been published in The French Australian Review, The Cordite Poetry Review and The AALITRA Review.
*The other poems cited by the poet are forthcoming on paralleltexts.blog.
The collection, Metode simple de încetinire a timpului [Simple methods to slow down time], can be found here: https://www.librarie.net/p/351932/metode-simple-de-incetinire-a-timpului
Painting: Nicolae Grigorescu, Andreescu at Barbizon (c 1880), oil on canvas, National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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