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| NICULINA OPREA c 2008 |
DANCE
Between sleep and unfulfillment
I dance at the edge
of the circle of flames.
oh that my rubber arms
would at last take fire!
the tombstone I always carry
I wrapped in the gift-shroud
from my family,
they expect something from me
I've no idea what.
2008
Translated by
ADAM J SORKIN
and
MARIANA DAN
The principal theme of her poetry is love. 'Niculina Oprea certainly belongs to the resurgence of permanent expressionism of the best quality,' critic and poet Paul Aretzu has remarked of her work. 'She has affinities with the stylistic limpidity and hermetic expressiveness of Paul Celan, in whose tradition she could be said to work.' Her work has appeared in many internationally published anthologies and journals and has been translated into English, French, Turkish, Spanish, Hebrew, Polish, Serbian, Arabic, Chinese, Albanian and the Tatar language of the Russian/Ukrainian Crimea.
Oprea has published eleven volumes of poetry, beginning in 1994 with the well received collection In The Akheron's Waters. This was followed by The Passage (1996), Under The Tyranny of Silence (2000), Litanies at the Edge of Memory (2002), …Next Summer You Will Be The Same (2004), Almost Black (2004, an English translation of the work of Turkish poet Ayten Mutlu), Les Guérisons imaginaire (2007, the French translation of Almost Black), Our Lives and Other People's Lives (2008) and Celebration (2011). She has also translated The Story of My Destiny by Sherko Bekas (2011), Istanbul Eyes by Ayten Mutlu (2012), the story collection Initiatoarea (2014) by Turkish writer Mustafa Balel and other works by Tozan Alkan, Mustafa Köz, Mesut Şenol, Gülümser Çankaya, Enrique Moya, Mehri Shahhossini, Silvia Tocco, Gervais de Collins Noumsi Bouopda, Fadéla Chaïm–Allami, Silvano Gallon, Zofia Beszczyńska, Monia Boulia and Khal Torabully.
Niculina Oprea was born on 5 March 1957 in Craiova, a town in southern Romania. The holder of a law degree and a member of the Romanian Writers' Union, the Writers' Society of Bucharest and the World Poets' Society, she has made her home in the Romanian capital since 1977.
The principal theme of her poetry is love. 'Niculina Oprea certainly belongs to the resurgence of permanent expressionism of the best quality,' critic and poet Paul Aretzu has remarked of her work. 'She has affinities with the stylistic limpidity and hermetic expressiveness of Paul Celan, in whose tradition she could be said to work.' Her work has appeared in many internationally published anthologies and journals and has been translated into English, French, Turkish, Spanish, Hebrew, Polish, Serbian, Arabic, Chinese, Albanian and the Tatar language of the Russian/Ukrainian Crimea.
Oprea has published eleven volumes of poetry, beginning in 1994 with the well received collection In The Akheron's Waters. This was followed by The Passage (1996), Under The Tyranny of Silence (2000), Litanies at the Edge of Memory (2002), …Next Summer You Will Be The Same (2004), Almost Black (2004, an English translation of the work of Turkish poet Ayten Mutlu), Les Guérisons imaginaire (2007, the French translation of Almost Black), Our Lives and Other People's Lives (2008) and Celebration (2011). She has also translated The Story of My Destiny by Sherko Bekas (2011), Istanbul Eyes by Ayten Mutlu (2012), the story collection Initiatoarea (2014) by Turkish writer Mustafa Balel and other works by Tozan Alkan, Mustafa Köz, Mesut Şenol, Gülümser Çankaya, Enrique Moya, Mehri Shahhossini, Silvia Tocco, Gervais de Collins Noumsi Bouopda, Fadéla Chaïm–Allami, Silvano Gallon, Zofia Beszczyńska, Monia Boulia and Khal Torabully.
In 2011 she was awarded the 'Dioysios Solomos' prize at the 22nd World Congress of Poets held in Larissa, Greece.
Use the link below to read more poems by Romanian poet NICULINA OPREA:
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Last updated 19 March 2021
Întru mulți, fericiți și binecuvântați ani!
ReplyDeleteTranslation: To everyone, a happy and blessed year!
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