Of Poetry

There was no internet when I was six years old. No video games and no cartoons on TV. We had like 2 episodes of cartoons every Sunday, if I remember correctly. So as soon as I learned how to read, I read everything I found. Everything. I started with a very sappy French novel I have found through my parents’ old things, which was quite inappropriate for a six year old, but it was OK because I didn’t understand what was going on anyway. XD My parents also owned some Romanian poetry books, which I also devoured. I read them so many times that I learned them by heart. Shakespeare? Yes, of course, but Romanian poetry is amazing and delightful and sometimes even funny. Unfortunately English translations doesn’t do them justice. Yet this guy, who died too young in an earthquake, the ’77 earthquake that destroyed Bucharest, managed to translate Mihai Eminescu’s poems in the most beautiful way. Here’s an excerpt of High O’er the Main, one of Eminescu’s most emo poems. Its original title is actually The Stars in the Sky.