Aceste poezii traduse in limba engleza fac parte din volumul „Testament – Anthology of Romanian Verse – Bilingual Edition” (Daniel Ionita, Minerva 2012). Dorim ca prin aceste articole sa promovam frumoasa poezia romaneasca pentru cititorii de limba engleza. Puteti sa dati „Share” acestor articole catre prietenii dvs. de limba engleza. Gasiti mai multe informatii la sfarsitul acestui articol. Va multumim! Daniel Ionita & Intercer
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Artistic Manifesto
by Daniel Ionita
As society has descended into a superficial relativist hell-hole of abject character and nonsensical discourse of self-centred and therefore self-referencing drivel – with little, if any, thought of the transcendent, the spiritual – the role of the artist, the poet specifically should be that of making society as uncomfortable as possible with itself. Nauseated. As Cezar Ivanescu would say, the level of discomfort society and its institutions, as well as individuals, should feel when a new book is published – should lead to the immediate sentencing to death of the author. This is how outraged, offended, society, its institutions and individuals within them should feel! This is now deep and vicious art, the representative of the transcendent and the spiritual, should cut. Else artists, writers, are not doing their duty as visionaries, as emissaries of the spiritual, of the soul, of what really matters – of what counts, well beyond the surface-material stuff, which seems to obsess and occupy us most of us (society, institutions, individuals) most of the time.
Looking at sacred texts from thousands of years ago: those prophets, often speaking in poem form (the most powerful, efficient and beautiful way of communication), where saying some really awkward, offensive things about the societies they were living in, uncompromising in their judgment about lack of character, criminal behavior, lack of compassion and grace, hypocrisy, evil – displayed by leaders, society institutions and ordinary citizens alike. No one was spared. And often society abhorred these uncomfortable visionary voices, and killed them. The sad thing is, I cannot see this happening today – not where I live in the affluent developed world.
Why? Is our society so much better that it should be spared this hated mirror that needs to be continually put in front of it? Not at all. We in the privileged developed countries are more shallow and hypocritical, more wasteful, more unjust (in the highest degree) with this planet and the rest of its inhabitants (human and otherwise) than at any other time in history. A lot more tragic is the fact that our artists and others who (should) find their sacred source in the transcendent, the spiritual, the intangible, have in fact swallowed hook-line-and-sinker the objectivist-rationalistic “scientific” world view. And have therefore lost the sense of the spiritual, of the truly-emotional and subjective (“Son, give me thine heart”), have lost the sense of the sacred, of the absolute. Of good. Of God, if you like. Therefore most of our artists and poets delve in the same nonsensical self-referencing comical existential angst drivel – reflecting, but rarely challenging and offending, those around them . Therefore, post and post-post-modernism means every voice, every view-point, every institution or individual has validity from its perspective – a cacophony of everyone talking and no one listening. Because, you know, if we are all equal, and all our view points have similar validity, what I say/write must be as valid/important/beautiful as The Psalms, Homer, Ovid, The Ramayana, Shakespeare, Dante, or Hugo. Hence, like the Dodo bird of Lewis Carroll “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”. No one today, in my society at least, will have the brutal honesty of, say, Shakespeare’s John the Bastard, to look themselves in the mirror and say: “For it must not be denied that I am a plain-dealing villain!”, We would rationalise some explanation, some excuse, some “different perspective”, as valid as other, often competing, ones.
Vezi mai mult la sursa: If artists, writers, poets would carry out their sacred duty towards the society they live in – every new published book would lead to calls for the…
Material preluat la Intercer de la Testament – Anthology of Romanian Verse – Bilingual Edition (Daniel Ionita, Minerva 2012).
Afla mai multe despre volumul „Testament” si cum poti sa cumperi cartea oriunde in lume: http://intercer.net/editoriale/lansarea-volumului-testament-de-daniel-ionita.html
