Poetry
Ioana Vintilă
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Ioana Vintilă
ăsta nu e poem de dragoste
poemele de dragoste prind cel mai bine,
le redau celor care citesc încrederea în forța de miere a
cuvintelor. în sinceritatea ambalată în staniol subțire
dintre toate, doar dragostea a fost bună cu mine. te-am
avut de la început, complet. simt că ar fi imposibil să fii cu
dorințele în altă parte. că îți simt bunătatea ca pe o pătură
flaușată, învelindu-mă strâns, strâns, mai strâns decât logic
ar fii să te ții cât mai departe. să simplifici. să ai liniște pe
care s-o umpli cu muzica ta și atât. să dormi nopțile fără
să te îngrijorezi de vârtejul din capul meu, de piciorușele
care țes imagini ce mă-nspăimântă, glazurate de lumina
alburie de la 4 a.m. să-mi simți îmbrățisările fără tremurat
în schimb, tragi draperiile. în spatele lor, lumina lilà a
dimineții se arcuiește pe spinarea pisicii
this is not a love poem
love poems are catchier,
they restore to those who read them the faith in the honey strength of
the words. in the honesty wrapped in thin tinfoil
of all things, love was the kindest to me. I have had you
since the beginning, completely. I feel it would be impossible to
have your desires elsewhere. that I feel your kindness like a fleece
blanket, tucking me in, tight, tight, tighter than it would make sense
for you to keep farther from me. to make things simple. to have the silence
you could fill with your music and nothing else. to sleep at night without
worrying about the whirl in my head, the tinny legs
weaving images that frighten me, glazed by the 4 am whitish
light. to feel my embraces without shaking
instead, to pull the shades. behind them, the lilac light of
the morning arches on the back of the cat
Translated by Clara Burghelea
sweetpea
peste zgomot s-a lipit pelicula de grăsime
dezabuzat / cum să privești un oraș sub apă
nu se face așa, drăguță
20 și ceva de ani nu înseamnă nimic
dintr-un simulacru îți trebuie doar mulajul
/ tablou recognoscibil din care să scoți convulsia /
un punct terminus
fosforescența unui corp gol în fața unui videoproiector
&
printre fumigene
lipidele trag tot mai tare unele spre celelalte
Note: These two poems were previously published in Romanian as part of a collection titled buncarul de origami.
sweetpea
the fat layer got stuck on the noise
weary / how to watch a city underwater
this is not how you do it, sweetpea
20 and something years old means nothing
you only need the mold from a simulacrum
/ the recognizable painting from where you remove the convulsion /
a terminus point
the phosphorescence of an empty body in front of a video projector
&
among smoke grenades
the lipids are fully pulling on each other
Translated by Clara Burghelea
Note: This is the first English translation of these two poems.
Ioana Vintilă was Born in 1977 in Sibiu, Romania. She is a biotech engineer, with an MA in Molecular Biotechnology. In 2016, she won the PEN International New Voices Award for her poems. Her first poetry collection, Birds in the sandstorm (2018) was published by Max Blecher Editorial House. Birds in the sandstorm was nominated for several national prizes and won the Iustin Panța and George Bacovia debut awards. Her latest collection, the origami bunker was published in 2022.
Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her second poetry collection Praise the Unburied was published in 2021 with Chaffinch Press. She is the Review Editor of Ezra, An Online Journal of Translation.