Life Sentence: Selected Poems

From Library Journal\nCassian has been one of Rumania's leading literary figures for over 40 years. Since 1985 she has lived in exile in the United States. A poem by Cassian (nee Renee Annie Stefanescu in 1924) is an occasion for probing what it means to be human. She writes poems (here translated by Stanley Kunitz, Richard Wilbur, Dana Gioia, and 17 other poets) that are half fable, half dissection. Her "flawless instinct" leads her to empathize with animals--kiwi birds, oxen, swans, elephants--that are energized by the ethnic vitality of Rumanian folklore. Just as Rumania is a crossroads between Western cosmopolitanism and Slavic culture, Cassian's poetry balances a semi-surreal vision ("a tree with a mustache,/ a child with a cardboard leg") with a humor that deflates excesses of romance. An intense poet of many metamorphoses, "uprooted from landscapes,/ with an unprepared soul," Cassian carries on the modern Rumanian literary tradition of Tudor Arghezi and Eugene Ionesco. 
- Frank Allen, Regents Coll., Albany, N.Y. 
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.\nLanguage Notes\nText: English, Romanian (translation)

Literature & Fiction

Cassian, Nina.

Poetry

W.W.Norton

Take My Word For It: Poems

A long-awaited collection―her first written in English―by Romania's leading literary figure for over fifty years, and one of the world's most important voices. Ars Poetica: a Polemic I am I. I am personal. I am subjective, intimate, private, particular, confessional. All that happens, happens to me. The landscape I describe is myself. . . . If you're interested in birds, trees, rivers, try reference books. Don't read my poems. I'm no indexed bird, tree or river, just a registered Self.

W.W.Norton&Company

A new collection of work from "a world-class, high-spirited, fierce, intelligent, uncompromising, and wonderfully nervy poet" (Stanley Kunitz).Continuum is a sweeping collection from a "miraculous" (Dana Gioia) poet. Spanning nearly sixty years, these poems--both new English translations of her work in Romanian--blend her gallows humor and an engagement with the human experience, from memories of a childhood at play to the contemplation of a gradual mortality.

Continuum: Poems

“The selected poems of Nina Cassian represent an exciting collaboration of poet-translators and the poet herself. Comedy and despair come together in this lyrical text; the whole is enhanced by William Jay Smith’s useful and insightful introduction.” ―Maxine Kumin Poems deal with childhood, color, censorship, freedom, greed, loneliness, love, pain, and mortality.

"The poems in this work show Cassian to be . . . a poet who can work miracles with language."―Library Journal Spanning nearly sixty years, these poems―both new English compositions and Nina Cassian's translations of her work in Romanian―blend her gallows humor with an engagement with the human experience.

A long-awaited collection―her first written in English―by Romania's leading literary figure for over fifty years, and one of the world's most important voices. Ars Poetica: a Polemic I am I. I am personal. I am subjective, intimate, private, particular, confessional. All that happens, happens to me. The landscape I describe is myself. . . . If you're interested in birds, trees, rivers, try reference books. Don't read my poems. I'm no indexed bird, tree or river, just a registered Self.

Take My Word for It

Anvil Press Poetry

Text: English (translation) 
Original Language: Romanian

Call Yourself Alive?

History & Criticism

Dufour Editions

The late poet, Nina Cassian, knew the avant-garde’s joyful flights and chivalrous desperation. In this collection, she brings poetry to a higher level by inventing a new language that is funny and challenging, imaginative and unique in force and grace.  Framed from within by Nina’s delightfully witty drawings, this book collects her most famous avant-garde poems, written over six decades. Cassian's decades of song set bodies and hearts in the enchanted state that flourishes above and  below the edicts of dullness and the precincts of censure. Her glossolalic ease and ecstatic insouciance are among the finest arrows in poetry's quiver. – Andrei Codrescu Nina Cassian was a fierce and highly determined poet. Her work is so witty and clever, so mordantly funny and skillfully made, that it is impossible to underestimate her driving passions, her wild-eyed fevers, her ferocious presence. Her sense of wonder was intense. – Edward Hirsch  Her previous books of poems were published by Norton.

The Avant Garde Doesn't Die and Never Surrenders

New Meridian Arts

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cassian, Nina.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cassian, Nina.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cassian, Nina.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Life Sentence: Selected Poems

Take My Word For It: Poems

Continuum: Poems

Life Sentence: Selected Poems

Continuum: Poems

Take My Word For It: Poems

Take My Word for It

Call Yourself Alive?

The Avant Garde Doesn't Die and Never Surrenders