If you are the only one capable of saving the world, would a hedgehog be your go-to solution? Should you commit seppuku simply because you feel at home everywhere? How much trouble could you be in, if you imagine that most people you meet are your concubines? What if you find out that God occasionally indulges in writing dirty poems? These questions seem absurd. However, before passing judgment, you might discover the surprising poetic resolutions that Daniel Ionita proposes in this volume
Daniel Ionita, born in Bucharest, Romania, teaches Organisational Improvement at the University of Technology, Sydney. Over the last ten years, Daniel has his work published in his native Romania as well as Australia, which is now home, and the USA. Daniels passion has been sharing poetry through anthologies, in English and Romanian, as a principal translator and editor of volumes such as Testament 400 Years of Romanian Poetry, a collection of Romanian poetry in English from its origins until today, which won the Antoaneta Ralian Prize for translation, awarded by the International Bookfair Gaudeamus, Bucharest, 2019. Other such anthologies include The Bessarabia of My Soul a representation in English, of poets from the Republic of Moldova (for which Daniel was awarded the Poetry Prize of the Literature & Art magazine in the Republic of Moldova, 2018) and Return Ticket from Sydney to Bistrita A Lyrical Carousel between the Antipodes. This work brings together, bilingually, two groups of poets living and creating 17000 kilometres apart: The Judith Beveridge Poetry Class from Sydney, and Conexiuni Literare / Literary Connections Bistrita Poetry Group from Romania. Daniel is the current president of the Australian-Romanian Academy for Culture.
"With poems often inventive and always gripping our attention
Daniel Ionitas Pentimento is a much-travelled collection that ranges over geographies, poets, dictators, titillations, violence, bitterness, love
musings on the eternal
and unexpected detours such as a plot to kill Santa." Paul Scully, author, The Fickle Pendulum
"Ionita has succeeded with dexterous flair in meshing history with the biblical while ribbing authority and human excess through absurdity and surrealism reminding the reader of Tristan Tzara and the Dadaists
T his collection is a significant contribution to Australian poetry." James Gering, author, Staying Whole by Falling Apart
"[Ionitas poems] are often enigmatic and paradoxical. But they also have a forthright energy and openness, a f lair for drama and a desire to connect as well as to entertain... The imagery may be appealingly whimsical, but this is not simple...instantly clear... poetry. A flexible way of reading is required preferably with a sense of humour and a willingness to respond intuitively to both the charm and the inherent contrariness..." Jean Kent, on Daniel Ionitas Short Bursts of Eternity
