{"id":293856,"date":"2013-04-22T16:04:03","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T16:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2013\/04\/22\/why-this-book-should-win-wheel-with-a-single-spoke-by-nichita-stanescu-btba-2013\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:39:28","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:39:28","slug":"why-this-book-should-win-wheel-with-a-single-spoke-by-nichita-stanescu-btba-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2013\/04\/22\/why-this-book-should-win-wheel-with-a-single-spoke-by-nichita-stanescu-btba-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Why This Book Should Win: "Wheel with a Single Spoke" by Nichita Stanescu [BTBA 2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the course of this week, we will be highlighting all 6 BTBA<\/span> Poetry Finalists one by one, building up to next Friday’s announcement of the winners. All of these are written by the BTBA<\/span> poetry judges under the rubric of “Why This Book Should Win.” You can find the whole series by clicking here.<\/a> Stay tuned for more information about the May 3rd ceremony.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Wheel with a Single Spoke<\/em><\/a> by Nichita Stanescu, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter, and published by Archipelago Books.<\/b><\/p>\n

Russell Valentino is the chair of Slavic Studies at Indiana University, editor of The Iowa Review<\/em>, founder of Autumn Hill Books, and translator of eight literary works from Italian, Croatian, and Russian. Oh, and he’s also received two Fulbright-Hays research grants and two NEA<\/span> Fellowships.<\/i><\/p>\n

A friend of mine once did commentary for a literary death match in the language of wine labels: a fruity blend of blackberry and barnyard; hints of oaky tangerines and smoked chestnuts; and so on. This worked well because no one forgets irony in literary death matches: everyone knows the contest cannot ever really be a contest. Unfortunately not the cast with the things called contests, and O, do we need some irony here!<\/p>\n

This is one\u2014though just one\u2014of the reasons that Nichita Stanescu\u2019s Wheel with a Single Spoke<\/em>, in Sean Cotter\u2019s English translations, should win this contest. It knows for irony, as when, in the love lyric, \u201cBeauty-sick,\u201d the lover enjoins, \u201cDo your best not to die, my love \/ try to not die if you can\u201d; or, in a nod to trans-sense, (\u201cWhat is the Supreme Power that Drives the Universe and Creates Life?\u201d), it turns out to be \u201cA and E \/ and I and O \/ and U.\u201d And once this tone, then everything takes on a tinge, or you at least have to wonder, when he writes words like \u201cconsciousness\u201d and \u201ccognition\u201d and \u201cbeing\u201d and \u201cah\u201d and most definitely \u201cO.\u201d<\/p>\n

It should also win because through the irony the post-War, Cold War, otherwise all-too-depressive seriousness grows deeper, more meaningful, easier to understand and appreciate, brighter, as when he writes, \u201cBecause my father and because my mother, \/ because my older sister and because my younger sister, \/ because my father\u2019s various brothers and because my mother\u2019s various sisters, \/ because my sister\u2019s various lovers, \/ imagined or real,\u201d after which you can\u2019t help but want to know more, read another line and another. And because Cotter has selected, pulled together, found coherent, compelling English form. And because the book itself is beautiful.<\/p>\n

And because of poems like \u201cKnot 33. In the Quiet of Evening\u201d\u201d:<\/p>\n

\n

I thought of a way so sweet
\nfor words to meet
\nthat below, blooms bloomed
\nand above, grass greened.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

I thought of a way so sweet
\nfor words to crash
\nthat perhaps grass would bloom
\nand blooms would grass.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Finally, it should win because it\u2019s ambitious and humble at the same time. This may smack of the poetry version of wine label verbiage, but I don\u2019t know how else to express it, and I don\u2019t mean it ironically. Though it\u2019s true that such a combination settles with a surprising tingle upon the palate, and leaves one stimulated long after.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the course of this week, we will be highlighting all 6 BTBA Poetry Finalists one by one, building up to next Friday’s announcement of the winners. All of these are written by the BTBA poetry judges under the rubric of “Why This Book Should Win.” You can find the whole series by clicking here. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[48756,50266,51156,1646,10146,28656,1486,51166],"class_list":["post-293856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-btba-2013","tag-btba-2013-why-this-book-should-win","tag-nichita-stanescu","tag-review","tag-romanian-literature","tag-russell-valentino","tag-sean-cotter","tag-wheel-with-a-single-spoke"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318356,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293856\/revisions\/318356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}