Monday, November 30, 2015

Spicy or not? Comments about Weekly Romanian Kukai no. 419



The taste of the group has moved towards quite spicy poems. I give the word a meaning as close to the idea of seasoning and not something indecent or frivolous. The appreciated poems usually have a pun, a play upon words: first snow -/ growing heavy/ the spider’s canvas, a reversal of perspective obtained by mirroring: twilight on the pond -/ going down quietly/ the snowflakes in the sky, a slight drift of words from the neutral, general meaning to one, here, with protective allusions: autumn rain -/ a leaf covering/ the cup of coffee, an obvious allegorical pivot: eye hospital- / very slowly rising up/ again the stars, a hint to the similarity in appearance: cabbage rolls for fasting - / wrapped up completely/ even the beggar, in coloring: first snow -/ mother lays on the bed/ the white blanket or to a suspected human suffering: first snow -/ shaking in summer clothes/ the scarecrow.

I commented on almost all of the poems which were given awards this week. Certainly, being spicy is not everything in the appreciation of the poems, but they can prevail in their assessment because they are more conspicuous, more pronounced, swifter, and more tingling. A poem like the one below, which lacks these ingredients which impress the taste buds, will often be neglected: 


dry rustling
of the wandering leaves - 
mistletoe wrapped in dew 
 

Why? Because it has some other, less tingling, flavor. Its hints are more simple and more sober. They are not doubled by a sign made an accomplice by winking. The poem leaves the images alone to speak silently with no verbal artifice. It does not help in any way and it also does not force the present elements to testify. And it lets the reader to feel the possible relationships between the dry leaves, which have fallen, driven by the wind, and the mistletoe which is still green in the empty crown of some tree. In-between what has withered away and what remains alive and fresh. Only the wandering leaves, a phrase which is quite common and a bit metaphorical, can make us remember Topârceanu. The mistletoe wrapped in dew, in contrast with the surrounding dryness, is the only one that can drop an allusion to a sympathetic weeping of a still living witness.

(Corneliu Traian Atanasiu)

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