claustrophobia

in the cellar, my father
dead for so many years
among madmen and deaf mutes
their pants pockets
stuffed with money and passports


outside, lonely horses
shod with crescent moons and crosses


I feel seasick


I am a tiny insect
a stowaway on a wooden schooner
exquisitely made
by the master directly
in a brandy bottle


Translations of "surd ca o bute," "după pompei," "claustrofobie." Copyright 2006 Mariana Dan. Translations copyright 2008 by Mariana Dan and Adam J. Sorkin. All rights reserved.

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Poetry From the June 2008 issue: The Global Gourmet

Mariana DanMariana Dan

Mariana Dan was born in Bucharest but has lived in Belgrade, Serbia, for almost thirty years. She was educated at the University of Bucharest and received her doctorate from the University of Belgrade, where she now heads the Romanian department. A participant in the important Balkan neo-avantgardist movement of the 1970s and 1980s in Serbia, Klokotrism, Dan's interests range from Romanian literature to the Romanian minority in Serbia and to Mircea Eliade. She is an important link between the Serbian and Romanian literatures. Her most recent book of poetry, The Angels at the Bus Stop, has won major critical recognition. The poems included here are from this 2006 collection.

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Translated from RomanianRomanian by Adam J. SorkinAdam J. Sorkin and by Mariana DanMariana Dan

Adam J. Sorkin recently published Memory Glyphs: Three Prose Poets from Romania, containing works by Cristian Popescu, Iustin Panța and Radu Andriescu (Twisted Spoon, 2009, with various collaborators). Mircea Ivănescu's lines poems poetry (University Press of Plymouth [UK], with Lidia Vianu) and Carmen Firan's Rock and Dew (Sheep Meadow, mostly with Firan) are both forthcoming. His other books include Ruxandra Cesereanu's Crusader-Woman (Black Widow, 2008, mainly with Cesereanu); Magda Cârneci's Chaosmos (White Pine, 2006, with Cârneci); and Mariana Marin's Paper Children (Ugly Duckling, 2006, with various collaborators). Sorkin and Vianu were awarded The Poetry Society's [UK] Translation Prize for Marin Sorescu's Bridge (Bloodaxe, 2004). Sorkin is Distinguished Professor of English, Penn State Brandywine.

» More by this translator

Mariana Dan was born in Bucharest but has lived in Belgrade, Serbia, for almost thirty years. She was educated at the University of Bucharest and received her doctorate from the University of Belgrade, where she now heads the Romanian department. A participant in the important Balkan neo-avantgardist movement of the 1970s and 1980s in Serbia, Klokotrism, Dan's interests range from Romanian literature to the Romanian minority in Serbia and to Mircea Eliade. She is an important link between the Serbian and Romanian literatures. Her most recent book of poetry, The Angels at the Bus Stop, has won major critical recognition. The poems included here are from this 2006 collection.

» More by this translator

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