Portland Public Library

The sky behind the forest, selected poems, Liliana Ursu ; translated by Liliana Ursu with Adam J. Sorkin and Tess Gallagher

eng

no index present

poetry

The sky behind the forest

37160586

Liliana Ursu ; translated by Liliana Ursu with Adam J. Sorkin and Tess Gallagher

selected poems

"When the Ceaucescu řgime was toppled, Liliana Ursu was able to give readings abroad. The American poet Tess Gallagher heard her in Spain, and was stunned. Not since αrst hearing Anna Akhmatova's poetry read in translation twenty years before had she encountered 'a woman's voice so carnivorous and tender, majestic and human... Her poems yielded a humanly political veracity which did not accede to cynicism, but seemed to have witnessed with a clear gaze what had befallen her country, its people.''She writes from a religious soul and the sustaining elements of her poems arise from ritual and humility, from tenacious, mindful suffering and deeply held religious practices and belief. Her voice is impetuous and full of a rushing audacity that can stab the consciousness by suddenly becoming stark and acute. The spectrum of Liliana Ursu's poetic reach combines the sensual and spiritual, the personal with the historical, the mythical with the daily. The jaundiced contemporary heart, closed to miracles and scant of the religious, may at least be persuaded to pause, to glimpse another world, when confronted with these poems"--Publisher's description

Introduction / Brenda Hillman -- In the Forest -- Title It As You Like -- Season's End -- Unforgetting -- Rain in Sibiu -- Seascape -- Poem with a Griffin, a Pike and Peacocks -- You Haven't a face -- Double Portrait -- Contre Jour -- Evening after Evening -- If Night Weren't So Long -- Moment with Thunder -- The Goldsmiths' Market -- Flowers of the Pyre -- Spring in Dream -- The Comet Is Coming -- Portrait -- With One Eye We Cry, with the Other We Laugh -- Silent Voices -- The Mirror's Hide and Seek -- Woman from Sibiel in Phoenix -- Humility -- Spanish Flashback -- For Constantin Noica -- Really, Don't You Believe Me? -- Poem for a Brother in Spirit -- Above the Bridge -- Portrait with Dandelions -- Bait -- Casual Event -- Life Under Ground -- Orpheus -- Dialogue -- In the City of What Once Was -- History of a Couple -- Anatomy of a December Night -- Contrasts -- A Midwinter Night's Dream -- From the Angel's Window -- Diana's Shadow -- The Poet's Cat -- Bison Hunting -- In the Dusk -- Letter from the Constellation of the Swan -- Is This Wisdom? -- Blues -- Couple -- The Moon -- The Eye of the Swan -- Spring Circumstance -- Death in Spring -- Ancient and Beautiful as the Mist -- Port Angeles -- Poem for Tess -- El Greco -- The Moon Seen from Romania, Japan and America -- Noroc -- Snapshot of an Orchard in Port Angeles -- Golden Dust