Poets

Asked whether too much poetry is being written today, Ion Mureşan replied that there can never be too many poets and that they are all important, no matter whether they write well or badly. Just as our bodies produce antibodies to fight an infection, a sick society produces poets – that is his theory. “The poets are white blood cells, antibodies that fight off a bad idea, corruption or a vulgar use of language.” And just as every antibody is important in surrounding and making a germ harmless, every poet is important, even if he only reads his work in his own flat in the presence of a small group of friends.

To continue in this vein, Ion Mureşan, born in Vultureni, a village near Cluj, the capital of Transylvania, on 9 January 1955, is one of the most energetic white blood cells in the disease called Romania, despite his having published only three collections of poetry in three decades – Cartea de iarnă (Winter Book, 1981), Poemul care nu poate fi inţeles (The Poem that You Can’t Understand, 1993) and Cartea Alcool (The Book of Alcohol, 2010).