New Epistle to Dear Popescu

another late address to a lost brother

I’ll need to get my hands on your poems in your own language, and I’ll need to learn a good deal more Romanian. I want very much to understand to what extent your free use of idiom and dialect and playful slang—wonderfully manifest in the English translation I hold—are also present in your own tongue, in your immediate, unmediated work. I’m guessing that I will witness these charms in abundance.

To that end, I have emailed my one friend in Transylvania, in Sibiu—the gracious Radu Vancu—asking him to assist my finding copies of your original books. I’ll keep you posted on his reply.

As I wait, I search online for possibilities, but so far I have found little beyond surprisingly many brief entries bemoaning the serial challenges and the heartbreaking brevity of your brilliant life. Schizophrenia and depression must surely have taken their toll, but I must say that they appear to have been powerless to take away your joy, your imagination, your such astonishing voice.

As I say, I hope to hold your poems just as you wrote them, and I hope to acquire a sufficient sense of Romanian to say them aloud and, in doing so, to hear your music.