Mircea Dan Duta (1967) is a poet, film scientist and translator, editor of the Levure Littéraire cultural platform (France-USA-Germany), Quest literary magazine (Montenegro) and FITRALIT Revue in Bucharest (specialized in literary translation), producer, organizer, moderator of cultural events in the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Romania. He writes his own poetic creation in Czech. He published three poetry collections: Landscapes, Flights and Dictations (2014), Tin Quotes, Inferiority Complexes and Human Rights or Married, No Strings Attached, Selling Dead Born Girlfriend (Mention: Worn-out) (2015, both of the titles issued at Petr Štengl Editions, Prague) and the bilingual (Czech-Romanian) authorial anthology Plíz sujčof jor mobajl founs / Pliz Suiciof Ior Mobail Făuns / Please Switch Off Your Mobile Phones. Now preparing two new titles: They Don´t Speak Polish in the Realm of Death and That s How Life Itself Wrote It. His texts are also published in literary magazines and revues in the Czech Republic (Uni, Protimluv, Weles, H_aluze, Dobrá adresa, Polipet, Tvar etc.) and abroad in translations: Slovakia, Italy, France, USA, Mexico, Spain, Romania, Moldavia, Israel, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia, India, Egypt, Korea, Poland, Sweden, Northern Macedonia, Peru, Chile, soon expected in Ukraine, Austria and Slovenia. Present in the anthologies Balkan Poetry Today 2017 and 2018 (UK), The Night Magician, (2018 - UK), Anthology of South-Eastern Poetry by Fahredin Shehu (2018, USA), (California Poetry Quarteryly - Anthology, (USA, 2018), World Poetry Almanach by Hadaa Sendoo (Mongolia, 2018 and 2019), Balkan Writers (Bulgaria, 2019), Poetry Against the Virus (Spain, 2020 - to be published), Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry (South Africa, 2020 - to be published). He translated almost 100 authors (whole volumes or fragments / samples for literary magazines) from Czech and Slovak into Romanian (especially poetic works and theater plays, but also novels and short stories). He is also translating from English, French, Polish and Slovene into Romanian and from Romanian, English, Slovak and Polish into Czech. He also put together and translated the first two anthologies of contemporary Czech poetry in Romanian (2015, respectively 2016) and the first anthology of contemporary Czech theater (2016) after the fall of communism. He also publishes scientific and specialized volumes and articles in the field of film and literary theory, critic and history from which we would always mention the book Storyteller, Author and God (Edition Charles University, Faculty of Arts, 2009), which is dedicated to some narrative aspects of the Czech and Slovak film New Wave in the 60s of the 20th century. He is a member of the Czech section of the PEN Club and also of the Romanian one. From 2015 to 2016 he coproduced and co-moderated the Reading Poetry literary evenings and the series of readings and literary programs Poetry in the Front Room. He also cooperates with the Poetry festivals FIP Bucharest, FIP Jassy and Transylvania in Cluj. He is also the moderator of the PEN Romania Literary Evenings that started in April 2018.
Transgressive
We made love
at the bottom of a dry lake.
Around full of dead shells
and bleached waterweeds.
Although your blood brought them back to live,
it wasn´t able to fill the lake again.
The Day Before You Came
(soap poetry – to one girl with golden hair)
You were so beautiful
barefoot,
with that long black dress
without sleeves,
with your long black straight hair,
with your white delicate
and heavenly pale face,
with your long svelte legs,
with your dark red narrow lips,
with your gentle hands
and thin arms,
with eyes burning
with your passion and pain mine
and with the heavy, squeaking silence of a world
neither mine nor yours.
You were so beautiful,
that I was even afraid
to look at you,
as if so much beauty
could have blinded me
like in those old Norwegian fairy tales.
But you knew exactly
why did you come for,
and so we finally got married
and took the train towards north
like in that old song.
But the strangest thing is
that I had never liked
black-haired girls.
But then
in our newlywed
polar night
you deciphered for me
even this last
useless puzzle:
'I'm not Agnetha though.'
The Wave
I was coming out of Tesco's and I saw her on the other side of the bridge. She was as beautiful as ever. I waved at her and called her name: Cześć, Kasia. But she kept going. Maybe she didn´t see me, didn´t hear me or didn´t understand me. Or maybe in the realm of death they just don´t speak Polish.
Next Stop
In the Paradise Garden there's no smoking, no drinking, no drugs, Marys don't lose their virginity and don't give birth in stables, no names are taken in vain, especially if no-one bears them, no apple stealing, no snake killing, no Polish speaking and no metro passing through. And even if it did, it certainly wouldn´t stop, so in any case we should get off at the next station.
Devín Castle
Getting off the night bus. The Slavic Embankment without you. The silent Morava. The frozen Danube. Ruins. Darkness. Praying. Not knowing to whom. Praying without words, without lips, without God. Sitting on the snow. Building a snowman. Next to me, the Danube kisses the Morava, silence flows into frost. Praying to the snowman. Decorating a Christmas tree. Lighting it up. Reading a poem under it. Christmas with you. Lying on the snow. Closing eyes. Praying without thoughts, without memories, without prayers, without forgiveness, without absolution. Diving into silence. Flowing into the frost. Your book on the Slavic Embankment. Ruins. Mist. Getting on the morning bus. Snowing all around.
Silent Night
Green corpses lying on the sidewalk. Wooden corpses, corpses cut off at the root, corpses stripped of their ornaments, corpses stripped of their color. Yesterday they were celebrating Jesus, meeting Santa Claus, listening to, playing and singing Christmas carols, wearing ornaments and offering presents, winking with a thousand sparkling eyes, making wishes come true, maybe they were greener than now, they were standing, not lying down, but nevertheless still corpses. Only just like today, nobody considered them as such.
That´s because yesterday they didn´t look dead at all but today they look as if they had never appeared alive. May the falling snow rest lightly on them and the sidewalk softly underneath. In any case they will never have a different tomb. I´m lying down among them And closing my eyes, to finally feel something of the spirit of this Christmas.
Unfinishable
I´m changing, not even knowing into what. I would so much like to take you with me, not even knowing where. My hands are shaking, my heart on my sleeve. Or maybe this heart isn´t even mine? A long time ago I stopped waiting to be enlightened. I deceived the sun, I betrayed the light for thirty and a half pieces of silver. I will keep the change.
Translated by Judit Antal
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