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Entries Tagged as '“Marin Sorescu”'

POETRY IN TRANSLATION (155): Marin SORESCU (1936-1996), ROMANIA – “Passport”

July 9th, 2016 · 1 Comment · Books, Diaspora, Education, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

This passport
Is written in my bones
On my skull, femur, phalanges and spine
All arranged in a way
To make clear
My right to be man.

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Poetry in Translation (CLVII): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Menu”, “Meniu”

December 26th, 2012 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CLVII): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Menu”, “Meniu” · Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, Translations, Uncategorized

Menu
(Marin Sorescu, Romania)
For breakfast a thin buttered slice
Of life.
With it we take water which rises incessantly
(Last night it covered three-quarters of the globe}
And boil it sterile of microbes.

For lunch we eat well and substantially
Three courses of earth:
Black earth, loess and clay.

We don’t usually have a cooked dinner.
We take
Either a star with a bit of honey
Or if it isn’t finished
Some happiness (which in fact we keep
For Sundays)
And whatever else is left over.

(Rendered in English by Constantin ROMAN, London,
© 2012, Copyright Constantin ROMAN)
Centre for Romanian Studies – London

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Poetry in Translation (CLVI): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Translation”, “Traducere”

December 26th, 2012 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CLVI): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Translation”, “Traducere” · International Media, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Translation
Marin Sorescu (1936 – 1996)

I was sitting an exam
In a dead language
And I had to transIate myself
From man into ape.

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Poetry in Translation (CLV): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Passport”, “Paşaport”

December 26th, 2012 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CLV): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Passport”, “Paşaport” · Poetry, quotations, Translations

Passport
(Marin Sorescu, Romania)

To cross the border
Between the sunflower
And the moonflower
Between the alphabet
Of handwritten events
And printed events.
(Rendered in English by Constantin ROMAN, London
© 2012, Copyright Constantin ROMAN)

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Churchill College, Cambridge, Romanian Poetry with George Steiner

April 14th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Diary, Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

NOTE: for those readers who either do not know or do not want to know and especially for those who escaped Romania, this is to say how nearly impossible it was to cross the Iron Curtain during Ceausescu’s hellish dictatorship: many people risked their lives and paid the heavy price of exile – others who had no faith in any change for the better after Ceausescu’s fall, have joined the exodus and millions of uprooted who seek work and settled in other countries – Millions of them!! Romania’s 23 million-population would decrease even faster should it not be for the influx of Chinese workers and the high birthrate of the Roma ethnic minority. Such is the inheritance of five decades of Communism!

extract from:
www.constantinroman.com/continentaldrift
(there is a free Romanian translation downloadable in pdf (ask for link – large memory needed ) , because even 17 years after the fall of communism, in 1989, although these memoirs were published in England and in the USA, its translation cannot be published in Bucharest: it was turned down by Liicianu of “Humanitas”, by Patapievici’s “Romanian Institute” (Formerly the Fundatia Culturala Romana) and by Romanian editors with claims of being “aristocrats of the intellect” (boierii mintii) – read “leaders of opinion”.

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Poetry in Translation (LXXIV): Marin Sorescu (b. 1950) – “Exile”

March 26th, 2010 · 1 Comment · PEOPLE, Poetry, Translations

EXIL (Marin Sorescu)
Au inflorit cartofii in Marmatia / si voi tocmai acum plecati spre sud /cand ceru-i aiurit si descusut / cand se confunda bocetul cu natia ? /

EXILE

As the potato flowers are in bloom
You take the road which ever us do part?
Now that the sky is gray and overcast
And tears confound the country and the doom?

The grief will be for you the new abode
Perhaps a warmer grave and newer ethos
We shall unearth those emerald potatoes
Those precious stones dug out from where we hoed.

What kind of God preserved in secret heavens
May still be glad to gather our bones
With you, with us we cry on our tombs
With you with us a story ends in ruins.
(Translated from Romanian by Constantin ROMAN)

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Poetry in Translation (II – VII): Marin Sorescu – “Ladder To Heaven” and five other poems

February 18th, 2003 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (II – VII): Marin Sorescu – “Ladder To Heaven” and five other poems · Poetry, Translations

LADDER TO HEAVEN by Marin SORESCU, translated by Constantin ROMAN A silk thread spun by a spider Is hanging from the ceiling Just above my bed. Every day I notice it Descending lower. Now I am even offered The ladder to Heaven – I say It comes from ‘up there’. Although I had lost weight […]

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