Andrei Doboș s-a născut la 6 august 1984, în Turda. Absolvent al Facultăţii de Litere a Universităţii „Babeş-Bolyai”, în prezent urmează studii doctorale la aceeaşi universitate. În perioada facultăţii a fost redactor al revistei Echinox, apoi, între 2009 şi 2014, redactor al editurii Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă din Cluj-Napoca. A publicat poeme şi articole în revistele România literară, Tribuna, Vatra, Echinox, Steaua etc. Debutează editorial cu mănăştur story, editura Vinea, 2007 (premiul „Iustin Panţa”, 2008 şi nominalizare la premiul Uniunii Scriitorilor din România pentru debut, 2008; ediţia a doua: Întîmplări de pe strada Petuniei, editura Tracus Arte, 2014). În 2011 publică volumul de versuri Inevitabil (editura Casa de pariuri literare), urmat de volumele Valea Rea (editura Cartea Romaneasca, 2015) și Spiro (editura Charmides, 2016).

Andrei Doboș (b. 1984) graduated from the Faculty of Letters (University „Babes-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca) with a BA and MA. He has published poems in magazines such as Echinox, Romania Literara, Tribuna, Steaua etc. In 2007 his debut book is published (Vinea, 2007), entitled manastur story (awarded the „Iustin Panta” award), Valea Rea (Cartea Romaneasca, 2015) and his latest poetry book, Spiro (Charmides, 2016), from which the present selection has been taken.

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Translation by:

Florin Buzdugan has graduated from the Faculty of Letters (“Dunarea de Jos” University, Galati) with a BA on the theater of Matei Visniec, an MA from the Faculty of Letters at the University of Bucharest with a thesis on the concept of counterfactuals. He manages the website Traducerile de Sâmbătă, which is a project dedicated to translating from different languages into Romanian (English, French, Russian, Italian etc.) and a section dedicated to translating Romanian notable authors from the Romanian into the English. He has published a poetry book (mai mult de trei cuvinte, Junimea Publishing House, Iasi, 2012).

Spiro

I am hope
the curbing of the light
through the spring birches.

Nearing the summer Perseids and tamarisk
reddened peach trees getting ready for autumn.

I have been slumbering all summertime
leaped against the juniper
with a fag behind my ear.

I am a clothing moth and I simper
and whirl starts blossoming.

I feel the collapsing
of space inside the light
from down the toes
up the hairs
on my crest.

I am he who swims in the white worm
arched shell under the muculent soil.

I’ve made
a mind out of the brain

and light
from the abysmal cetacean.

I am she who dances
in tortoise’s cub
and looks after the ducks
during the winter nights.

I have the force that moves
the fence pumkin;
the energy more powerful than you
that radiates from within the bones.

At dawn I have your motherly
face walking her child in the park
the face of the people by which you pass
and whom you discreetly salute with your clear hand.

At moonrise
I have your face
your eyes burning
with a primal ecstasy.

I fathom from within you
the going out of your flame
the fever of your masks
all this all too well,

I have calibrated my soul
to your vesperal muteness
in my chest a thorny
raspberry bush
has grown.

I have spelled
Words
with your girlish voice
playing all by herself
her florid vibration
with nodulous birches and mycelia
has grown roots.

• translation by Florin Buzdugan