Athanor & Other Pohems

Poetry. Translated from the Romanian by MARGENTO (Chris Tanasescu) and Martin Woodside. One of Romania's most important poets and a key figure in the surrealist movement, Gellu Naum remains almost entirely unknown to English speaking audiences. Sampling some of Naum's best work from a unique literary career spanning over more than 60 years, this collection offers a long overdue introduction to one of the greatest figures in 20th century European poetry. "In the history of radical modernism and of Surrealism in particular the time has come for a reading of the second generation of Surrealist poets spread over multiple cultures and continents. It is in this sense that the presentation here of the poetry of Gellu Naum both serves this end and allows us to see a work of poesis remarkable enough in itself to call for our total attention. In ATHANOR & OTHER POHEMS, there is a thrill of discovery in the presence of a mind and voice that brings new complexities and tonalities toward the rebirth of something that we thought we knew and that even now astounds us."—Jerome Rothenberg "In the beginning, there were several prizes in the Cosmic Lottery that were won by poets. Gellu Naum won a telescope-microscope made from angel dew that was invisibly inserted behind his eyes. Over the course of a lifetime he viewed love, friends, fruit, weather, and writing through that angelic instrument. The poetry of Gellu Naum is the script that inscribes Romania, the country lucky to have had him, onto the angelic map of the Cosmic Lottery."—Andrei Codrescu "For those who thought provocatively experimental writing left Romania with the person of Tristan Tzara, in 1915, or Paul Celan, as late as 1947—which is pretty much all of us who read poetry in English—the work of Gellu Naum is a revelation. In these wonderful translations we feel the life of the poetic imagination flowing freely long after Dada, Surrealism, and their discontents had faded into manner or silence elsewhere. Naum is Tzara's truest heir, with the gravity of Apollinaire and the eye of Breton."—GC Waldrep