George Bacovia

[bendk]

SIDESHOW


Lugubrious, late in the night
The brass-band barrel-organ whined...
Lost in the deserted museum,
I looked through the glasses, alone.

And in the world of sad glasses
I was gripped by sinister thoughts -
There were bodies of wax around me,
With hideous, fixed stares.

And the brass-band barrel organ
Gave me a satanic fright;
In coffins of glass - princesses
In lace mechanically sighed.

And then full of horror I ran
From the sombre museum of dread,
The town was sleeping in silence,
Like a cavern the organ whined.

A sad, forgotten aria
The brass-band barrel-organ whined...
And I stood petrified..and for ages,
The city seemed to be damned.


Thomas Ligotti has mentioned Bacovia as a poet he enjoys reading. I don't know if Bacovia ever influenced TL's work, but he is a writer whose work should be of interest to anyone who admires Ligotti.

George Bacovia (1881-1957) is one of the most accomplished poets of Romania. Bacovia is credited for bringing the epoch of idyllic sentimentalism in poetry to an end in Romania. He lived a harsh life and was always plagued by illness which is often mirrored in his somber poems.

A 'bacovian atmosphere' is known in Romania to mean: an autumnal or dying season-like setting, where it is forever raining, leaves are falling, ravens are flying through the air, and an overall pronounced 'death-in-the midst-of-life' awareness: funeral processions, illness, death, and mourning. In this respect, his work is akin to the work of Edgar Allen Poe and Edvard Munch - and perhaps Ingmar Bergman, if you substitute seagulls for those ravens.

More of his poetry that has been translated into English can be found at the following link:

www.aboutromania.com/bacovia.html

[unknown]

hm! will definitely give him a look

[yellowish haze]

I was doing a small research on several authors that were discussed here at TLO in the past and, unexpectedly, I found this fantastic volume of Complete Poetical Works and Selected Prose of George Bacovia 1881-1957 that was published at the end of the last year.

This looks like a Ligottian must-have!

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[The New Nonsense]

Thanks Slawek!!

I've been waiting for Bacovia to be available in English for a VERY long time. About a year ago I wanted his works so badly that I began copying his poems (from the net, translated into English) by hand into a blank book. I got about 15-20 pages into it before I realized my own handwriting was too distracting (strange reading someone else's thoughts in your own handwriting), so I abandoned the idea. However, with this new edition, it seems the wait is over. It's in hardcover too. Bonus!

[teguififthzeal]

Bacovia had a laudanum habit..no surprise..lol

[Sand]

Here is my version of a Bacovia poem, from my collection Star Kites:

Winter Twilight (A Version of Amurg de Iana by George Bacovia)

Winter twilight, iron-dark,
Over the vast pale plain,
Oar-winged, a raven arrives,
Dissecting the horizon.

The few bare trees have snowflake hair.
I taste the day’s decay:
Again, the silent raven
Dissecting the horizon.

(He actually translates much better into French. It's the murmurous music that is hard to accomplish in translation into English).