Wheel With a Single Spoke: and Other Poems - Softcover

Stanescu, Nichita

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1935744151 ISBN 13: 9781935744153

Publisher: Archipelago, 2012

Synopsis

Winner of the Herder Prize, Nichita Stanescu was one of Romania’s most celebrated contemporary poets. This dazzling collection of poems – the most extensive collection of his work to date – reveals a world in which heavenly and mysterious forces converse with the everyday and earthbound, where love and a quest for truth are central, and urgent questions flow. His startling images stretch the boundaries of thought. His poems, at once surreal and corporeal, lead us into new metaphysical and linguistic terrain.

About this title

About the Author

Nichita Stanescu (1933–1983) was the most beloved and groundbreaking Romanian poet of the twentieth century. Stanescu transformed Soviet-style aesthetics from within, infusing the tangible world with a metaphysical vocabulary all his own. Stanescu received the Herder Prize in 1975 and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1979.

Sean Cotter’s translations from the Romanian include Liliana Ursu’s Lightwall and Nichita Danilov’s Second-hand Souls. His essays, articles, and translations have appeared in Conjunctions, Two Lines, and Translation Review. He is Associate Professor of Literature and Literary Translation at the University of Texas at Dallas, Center for Translation Studies. Cotter’s translation of Mircea Cartarescu’s Blinding is also available from Archipelago.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

In Praise of People
From the point of view of trees, the sun is a band of heat, people – a terrible emotion . . . They are the wandering fruits of an even greater tree.
From the point of view of stones, the sun is a falling stone, people are a tender pressure . . . They are motion added to motion and light you can see, from the sun.
From the point of view of air, the sun is air full of birds, wing beating on wing. People are birds never before seen, with wings ingrown
that beat, hover, glide, within an air more pure: thought.

Edition details

• Publisher: Archipelago
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1935744151
• ISBN 13: 9781935744153
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200