Over 100 poets from more than 30
\ncountries attended the 8th Bucharest International Poetry Festival
\nheld in the Romanian capital city between May the 15th and 21st.
\nThe Festival included events like roundtables, panel discussions, performances
\nand jazz recitals, book launches, conferences and, for the first time this
\nyear, events devoted to children. A novelty this year was also the PEN Club
\nanniversary, which brought to Bucharest PEN members from most European
\ncountries. Claudiu Komartin, a poet and the editor in chief of Poesis International magazine and head of
\nthe Max Blecher Publishers, one of the longest-lasting and well-known book
\nclubs in Romania, moderated a number of reading sessions as part of the
\nBucharest International Poetry Festival.<\/p>\n
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\n
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Claudiu Komartin: I believe it is important for us
\nto showcase, for those people who are interested in poetry, the variety and
\nplurality of styles that exist in today’s literature and, in particular, in
\nthis very special area, contemporary poetry. The reason I say this is that
\ncontemporary poetry has its own particular public, and a specific type of
\nexplorations, of quests. I’m not sure how important my role is within this
\nFestival, but I was entrusted with organizing these reading sessions, at the
\ncentre of which are young poets, aged between 20 and 40 years. Moni Stanila and
\nAlexandru Vakulovski are among the oldest, so to say, young poets who are
\npresenting their works these days. We have very different poets, coming from
\nCluj, from Bucharest, from Chisinau, a very diverse range.<\/p>\n
\n
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One of the poets featured in the Festival
\nis Radu Vancu, who is also, according to writer Mircea Cartarescu, one of the
\nleading poetry critics Romania has at present. We asked him about his
\nimpressions after the Bucharest International Poetry Festival:<\/p>\n
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\n
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Until a decade ago, each
\ngeneration used to have some sort of prevailing rhetoric, a kind of group
\npoetics that a writer had to adopt, otherwise they would appear detached from
\nthe trends in contemporary poetry. For instance, a member of the ’60s
\ngeneration had to be somewhat neo-modernist, those from the 80s were
\nnecessarily textualist and sort of bookish. Today, however, what I notice is an
\namazing diversity of techniques and approaches, some of them are very
\ncorporeal, others are sentimental, others focused on writing techniques or are
\nvery experimental. I believe that the Romanian poetry of today has succeeded in
\nusing all poetic formulas. I could even say that Romanian poetry has managed to
\ndocument the whole world and mirror its diversity. And this is a very good
\nthing, as I don’t believe we’ve seen such diversity in Romanian poetry so far.
\nAnd I also believe that it is not the internal logic of poetry that has brought
\nus here, but the fact that Romanian poets and writers are very connected to the
\nglobal trends in poetry and they travel a lot more than they did ten years ago,
\nfor instance. And this has triggered an infusion of new poets, and also new
\nways to see the world and new names of writers. This whole process has prompted
\na diversification in poetry. And the results can be seen now. I hope that the
\ncultural institutions in Romania, that promote Romanian literature, from the
\nRomanian Cultural Institute to the Ministry of Culture, will not see this
\nnational identity that they have approached lately in institutional terms, as a
\nform of tribalism, of autarchy, of closing the borders. It is obvious that only
\nby traveling the world, by keeping borders open, culture can be enriched and
\ndiversified.<\/p>\n
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\n
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One of the events
\nmoderated by Radu Vancu within the Bucharest International Poetry Festival has
\nbeen the debate held by translator Adam J. Sorkin from the US, dubbed Putting
\na Blotch across the Sun, Tripping up for Good at the Soul: A Translator’s
\nEvolution. Radu Vancu explains:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Adam J.
\nSorkin has done a lot for our poetry as he has translated tens of poets
\nthroughout time. He also initiated this shift of Romanian poetry from our
\nlocalism towards Western policies a time when it was difficult for Romanian
\npoets to travel and to reach the US for instance, in order to get in touch with
\nthe cultural movement there. So at that time Adam J. Sorkin played the role of
\na sort of ‘cross-border elf’ taking Romanian poetry to the US and bringing
\nAmerican poetry to Romania. I believe
\nthat Adam J. Sorkin, beyond his merits as a translator, worked as a ‘cultural
\nfacilitator’ in the sense that he managed to ease the transfer of poetry-related
\ninformation to and from the US and to somehow catalyze Romanian poetry writing,
\nwhich makes him more of a cultural agent, rather than a mere translator. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The International
\nPoetry Festival in Bucharest is a cultural initiative absolutely necessary in
\nthe context of the European Union and the common cultural values promoted
\nthrough it. At the moment of its first edition, back in 2010, Bucharest had
\nbeen among Europe’s very few capitals to not host such a wide-scale festival.
\nShortly after its appearance, however, this festival has made up for this
\ndeficit in the Romanian culture, bringing poetry – as a major literary genre as well the poets and their voices -
\nup to the forefront, to the attention of the big public interested in the
\nvarious forms of poetical expression says Ioan Cristescu, director of the
\nNational Museum of Romanian Literature, the main organizer of the event. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over 100 poets from more than 30 countries attended the 8th Bucharest International Poetry Festival held in the Romanian capital city between May the 15th and 21st<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":161604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[44864],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-161603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-bucharest-international-poetry-festival"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n