Mircea Ivanescu was an Romanian poet, writer and translator, forerunner of Romanian postmodernism

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

, notably for the '80s generation. His translations from universal literature into Romanian include James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

, Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

, F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...

.

Background

Prolific poet, debuting with Lines in 1968, Ivanescu has published almost every two years a new volume during four decades. His lyrics, often depicting a day-to-day I disguised as "mopete" (an anagram of "poet" and "poem" it was thought, but the poet himself denied it recently in an interview ), has rehabilitated narativity in Romanian poetry in the seventies, echoing American post-war major poets. He won the Mihai Eminescu Poetry Prize (1998) and was proposed by Romanian Professional Writers Association for Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

in 1999.

Poems

the introduction of vasilescu's father's friend

Mopete went to the theatre today. he took
a girl, and vasilescu’s father’s friend saw him—called hello
to him, too—mopete threw a meaningful, if too
obvious glance at the girl beside him, and with a fixed look
walked right by. the play proved to be of great interest.
the girl at mopete’s side—she wasn’t young nefa—listened
totally absorbed. mopete said to himself—now he’ll have turned
round to look at you—and put on an earnest
expression. he pretended to be engrossed by the play. then a
while later, the girl cocked her head and spied
upon mopete, as if with wonderment (how shrewd
these girls are, mopete told himself). like an antenna
in a raised position, mopete strove to hear everything the girl thought
as she sat beside him. vasilescu’s father’s friend laughed.

(translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu)
Holiday

Holiday morning (1970), she used to wake up very early
to see the sun rise. I was sleeping - and in my sleep
I was hearing her getting up, smoking or reading
and she was turning the pages so quickly that I was sure
I was sleeping between each of them.
in the beginning, she used to invite me, then she didn’t ask for my company.
she walked alone, somewhere in the wood - with a book
or just like that, alone, standing still, the eyes closed
under the young sun. I was sleeping. it was only later I was going
out to look for her. Sometimes she used to smile when seeing me
other times she kept sober.

(translated by Georgia I.)

Poetry collections

• Versuri (EPL, 1968)
• Poeme (Eminescu, 1970)
• Poesii (Cartea Românească, 1970)
• Alte versuri (Eminescu, 1972)
• Poem (Cartea Românească, 1973)
• Alte poeme (Albatros, 1973)
• Amintiri (Cartea Românească, 1973)
• Alte poesii (Dacia, 1976)
• Poesii nouă (Dacia, 1982)
• Poeme nouă (Cartea Românească, 1983)
• Alte poeme nouă (Cartea Românească 1986)
• Versuri vechi, nouă (Eminescu, 1988)
• Poeme alese (1966–1989)
• Poeme vechi, nouă (Cartea Românească, 1989)
• Versuri (Eminescu, 1996)
• Poezii (Vitruviu, 1997)
• Poesii vechi şi nouă, antologie (Minerva, 1999)

External links

• Ivnescu poemsc