Caietele Echinox, vol. 30, 2016 : Repenser le politique… 61 Yoshiro Sakamoto Stefan Baciu, Archipelagic Poet from Romania

ABSTRACT În arhipelag de stele Ştefan Baciu, a Romanian exile poet born in rime caut : Braşov şi Mele Braşov who escaped the oppression of the , Sighişoara communist regime after WWII in his şi în piept îmi bate vioara1 country, vastly wandered across the oceans, travelling through many cities such as Berne, Et que serait-ce que l’Archipel? or Seattle, and reaching the La dispersion du non-Etre, Hawaiian Sandwich Archipelago. During his qui réassemble l’étant du monde. odyssey, he created his own cosmological L’étant comme étants.2 geography through the poetic fusion of his fragmental memories of places and people. It 1. The Encounter of Two Archipelagic was also generated by the melancholic Visionaries nostalgia caused by the loss of his “home.” This article attempts to carve out the force of In the spring of 1992, soon after the Baciu’s “poetry” through the “archipelagic end of the Cold War, the encounter between vision” advocated by Ryuta Imafuku. He two hommes de lettre of completely dif- promotes an alternative view which dissolves ferent origin who had vastly drifted across the modern dominant and normative world- the ”Americas” on similar trails, took place. perception into the fluid and contingent The two met in Oahu Island of the Sand- world of the ocean. Imafuku was also wich Archipelago, , far off in the inspired by Baciu’s poetic life to weave this Pacific Ocean. vision. Their views of the world resonate One of them was Ştefan Baciu, a with each other across the ocean. Romanian exile poet born in Braşov who escaped the oppression of the communist KEYWORDS ; Stefan Baciu; Ryuta regime after WWII in his country, wander- Imfuku; “Archipelagic Vision”. ing across the oceans mainly through the two Americas, Latin American countries YOSHIRO SAKAMOTO such as Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, , etc. and finally settling in the periph- Tokyo, Japan ery of North America, in Seattle and [email protected] Hawaii. He wrote poems, memoirs, literary criticism, essays and articles expressing political opinions, which resulted in more

Yoshiro Sakamoto 62 than 100 books and 5000 strategies for rejecting the essentialism of a articles in six languages, the monocular identification of the subject outcome of his continuous, within modern normative frameworks such life-long writing in all the places that he had as nation, race, and ethnicity. In this work lived in and visited. Throughout this he cited innumerable writers, poets, cultural everlasting odyssey, he even created his theorists and philosophers who struggle on own cosmological geography through the the borders between white and black, poetic fusion of the fragmental memories of colonizer and colonized, ruler and subject, places and people he loved. Yet, his literary as Creole, Mestizo, Chicano, etc., and activity may also have supported him whose ideas are based on solidarity through throughout the mourning and melancholy the cultural consciousness of hybridity, caused by the loss of his homeland, the fluidity, border-crossing, heterogeneity and places he had visited, his precious friends multilingualism that tries to overcome and family in exile, including Mira, his modern dominant values. beloved wife, who had always accompanied After declaring “Creolism” as encapsu- him, but had passed away in 1977. He was lating the dynamic plurality of “Americas,” left alone in the Hawaiian Sandwich Imafuku attempted to shed yet another light Archipelago, and even worse, he almost lost on this issue. Especially, he was concerned his eyesight. In the last years of his life, he about the “Americas” of the immigrants spent time reminiscing his life of itinerancy from the East, fleeing the communist regime, in solitary “darkness.” and wanted to examine what cultural prism The other writer is Ryuta Imafuku, an emerges from this mélange of exiles from anthropologist and cultural critic from the the east with the “Americas.” To find out Japanese archipelago, who has also trav- more about this certain issue, he met Ştefan elled and investigated many places across Baciu, an exile poet from communist East- entire America, such as Mexico, Brazil, ern Europe who had been a literary celebrity Cuba and the U.S.A. Since the middle of the in the “Americas,” deeply engaging in the 1980s, Imafuku has tried to conceptualize Latin American literary scene during the the plurality of “Americas” against the mo- post-war era. Baciu had published many nocular view of a singular “America”, as a important volumes, including two excellent modern dominant cultural value represented anthologies, Anthology of Latin American by political-economic-military imperialism, Surrealist Poetry 4 and Anthology of Latin (post-)colonial exploitations, the slavery American Poetry5, the first anthologies col- underpinning its social development, con- lecting representative poems from the vast sumerism, monetarism or tourism, which range of Latin American modernism. In an gathered steam during the period of the essay recalling the encounter with Ştefan collapse of the Soviet communist regime Baciu, Imafuku wrote that the purpose of and attempted to homogenize the world visiting him seemed to be immediately through the power of nation and capital. In achieved on the first glimpse in Baciu’s contraposition to that, the term “Americas,” room in “Arcadia,” the name of his final pluralized America, was used by Imafuku as residence in . an alternative vision in order to articulate cultural diversity and dynamics. In 1991, I approached Baciu and shook hands one year before his encounter with Baciu, with him. He was holding a brand new he had just published Creolism – The Heter- white book in the other hand. He ology of Culture3, in which he discussed started explaining about the book, after

Ştefan Baciu, Archipelagic Poet from Romania the brief greeting, that it is his first led by the voice of a vagabond 63 poetry book, recently republished in who had crossed oceans and . He seemed to find it dif- continents.”9 He imagined ficult even to stand up straight and that all exile poets from all over the world shake hands with me. Seeing his vul- who resisted suppression and struggled for nerable figure, I felt that the purpose of their lives and liberty gathered in the reso- this visit had almost been achieved at nance of their voices of “poetry.” Inspired that moment. An exile poet provided by this imagination, Imafuku elaborated his with nursing care in a senior residence, vision in a more expanded range of thought pleased with the republication of his from this period on through getting first Romanian poetry book, which had inspiration from countless poets, writers, originally come out in 1935, when he artists and philosophers not only from the was just 17 years old. This spoke ”Americas,” but from all over the world. volumes…6 Precisely he indicated the birth of this vision as ”Archipelagic” in an essay about the life Facing Baciu’s vulnerable appearance of a prestigious Russian exile poet, Josef surrounded by a transparent atmosphere of Brodsky and the cities he had passed death, Imafuku felt the complexity of his through. delicate and nameless sentiments in the life- long trail of his itinerancy: melancholy, Brodsky… stands motionless in-between longing, joy… originating in the absolute the river and the sea in Venice, and distance to his home, and in the countless measures his own thought as exile with encounters with and losses of places and the various heights of the tides whose people. water seeps in there, witnessing the He tried to feel the depth of this exile coalescence of the Adriatic and Baltic poet’s sentiments that cannot be reached by water expanses in their miraculous analytic and theoretic, or even linear usages reflection….The water cities which get of words. It seemed to him that only connected to each other in the exile’s “poetry” could do that, since he had found it diasporic perception of the world, also at the core of Baciu’s life. Actually his life mean the birth of a new imagination itself was “poetry.” As the force to survive that sees the world as the archipelagic in his itinerancy, he was gifted by it.7 linkages among the “water cities.”10 Imafuku tried to see the “Americas” from Baciu’s point of view, yet they seemed to Imafuku imagines the network of the have dissolved into his “poetic” life itself. exiles’ voices echoing through the sea and Imafuku wrote: “Baciu’s struggle to survive the ocean. In the sea, the exiles’ imagina- in his solitude, ultimately arming himself tions connect places with places, time with with ‘poetry’, can be seen as a universal time, beyond the normative sense of reality. choice of exiles.”8 Imafuku saw this “strategy” In this “archipelagic” vision, it is not as a common way of surviving in itinerancy difficult to also hear Ştefan Baciu’s voice, for every exile poet. After encountering which echoes across the oceans and the Baciu, he had a vision of the exiles’ imagi- places he was attached to, such as Braşov, nary community. “At that time, I envisioned Berne, Brazil, Seattle, Honolulu… In 1993, a dreamlike scene. In it immense numbers only a year – after the dialogue with of windows of the residences in which all Imafuku, Ştefan Baciu passed away. His exiles live came to the mountain of Manoa, entire work is still not read and evaluated

Yoshiro Sakamoto 64 enough today, despite its reversal of the modern world-perception importance in modern litera- into an oceanic or, rather, archipelagic ture across borders11. Yet, in world perception. the “Archipelagic vision,” his life and literature can be unfolded in poetic solidarity The external and internal ruins with other authors against the violent and covering the world today, the paradox rigid regime of modernity. In this article, I of “modernity” – the progress of examine the poetic force of Baciu’s History, which was led by oceanic literature through the “archipelagic vision,” transits. The paradox of the nations’ especially concentrating on his posthumous global domination based on the conti- compilation of short poems, all consisting of nental principle, by ruling the oceans. rhymed four lines, titled Over One Thou- Shouldering all things mentioned sand Quatrains – under the tâmp... from above with pain, History must be Honolulu–, written in the last three years inverted into the state of the ocean, so before his death in Hawaii. He wrote at least as to allow the emergence of the unity one quatrain every day in the solitude in a and resonance of relations which were far off island in the Pacific Ocean, just like sunk deep into the ocean, on the keeping a diary, recalling the trail of his surfing edge of joyous memories, odyssey, collecting fragmentally the rejecting the order or system imposed memories of lost places and lost friends, on the continent.13 dispersed across the oceans. He wrote these lines, resonating the atmosphere of death, For Imafuku, the essential notions with deep melancholy. This volume reflects representing modern values – such as or rather reconceives his whole life and nation, race, and ethnicity – were the poetry itself. invention of the “continental” principles, which are normative, static and rigid, fixed and ensured by authority. The archipelagic 2. Poetic Resistance against Modern vision, which comes from the sea, leads to History cultural non-essentialism, represented by creolisation, fluidity, and elasticity. Its open In this article, I will show how the solidarity is celebrated through the practices archipelagic vision unfolds in Ştefan Baciu’s of vernacular culture14, like songs, dancing, poetry in connection with Imafuku’s poetry and other artistic activities.15 understanding of this idea. In 2008, Ryuta In this vision, primarily the resonant Imafuku published Archipelago – Mundi12, voices of the dead in dreadful history must a book which manifests the archipelagic be listened to in the sea. For instance, in vision as an alternative viewpoint on the Imafuku’s Archipelago-Mundi, the poem world, against the modern global domination “The sea is History” written by Derek of the world. At the beginning of the book Walcott, a creole poet from Saint-Lucia entitled The Sea Notes, he declares his island in the Caribbean sea, is cited as one rejection of the normative order built of the most important voices resonating in throughout modern History, which is full of the vision. blood and pain – colonialism, imperialism, cultural and economic exploitation, the Where are your monuments, your Holocaust, concentration camps, environmental battles, martyrs? destruction. – Instead he craves for the Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,

Ştefan Baciu, Archipelagic Poet from Romania in that gray vault. The sea. The sea 65 has locked them up. The sea is History. (…) Exodus. Bone soldered by coral to bone, 3. Against the Consistency mosaics of Time and Space mantled by the benediction of the shark’s shadow. 16 To refuse the linear description of History in the modern era is the prime Here, the painful lament of the dead attitude underlying the archipelagic vision. slaves echoes throughout the sea. They were Thereby, Koji Taki, a philosopher who jettisoned from the ships and sank into the highly inspired Imafuku’s thought, wrote a depths with their bones soldered to each fable-like interpretation of Titanic’s foun- other by coral at the bottom of the sea. They dering. Taki saw the accident of the Titanic did not have any monuments, any national as the symbolic catastrophe of modernity.18 records to acknowledge their truths, even Everybody knows what tragedy happened their existence, they just sank in the sea. on this majestic “unsinkable” ship, but no Authorized, conventional History abstracts one knows who drifted away and died in the and ignores their individual lives and cold sea, or the stories of every victim. stories. In the catastrophe of slavery trading Authorized History ignores its victims’ which is one of the origins of modernity, individual lives in catastrophes. The only countless people were namelessly annihilated. one that knows the dead is the sea, which Walcott’s poem “The sea is History” tries to embraces them at its depth, as lamented in engrave the dead’s existence on History. Walcott’s “The Sea is History.” Besides, the In this sea of suffering, Ştefan Baciu Titanic was the most “advanced” ship, seen uttered his voice from other archipelagos. as a symbol of the accomplishment of As Imafuku does in his archipelagic vision, technological progress at that time. The Baciu bundled the resonant voices of the notion of “progress” or “evolution” is a poets, writers and artists struggling against modern value. In this modern context, time modern oppressive history. He collected the is solely linear, heading toward the future, words of his fellow poets and writers and never back to the past, like a ship, dispersing across the oceans in which the which only advances forward at sea. national borders and differences of language This imagination of the catastrophe dissolve, so as to create an independent and caused by the linearity of modern times is intimate sphere of poetic resistance.17 strongly influenced by Walter Benjamin’s “The angel of history,”19 which is described in the 9th of his Theses on the Philosophy of History.

A Klee painting named “Angelus Novus” shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we

Yoshiro Sakamoto 66 perceive a chain of events, could be a set piece on the train to Geneva he sees one single catastrophe after seeing Klee’s paintings in the museum which keeps piling wreckage of Berne. Yet, it cannot be such a simple upon wreckage and hurls it in front of reminiscence, for the rejection of linear time his feet. The angel would like to stay, also shows in his words. His quatrains awaken the dead, and make whole always speak indirectly of the loss of his what has been smashed. But a storm is past time and places in exile, craving for blowing from Paradise, it has got their (impossible) recuperation. Klee’s angels caught in his wings with such violence in the quatrain – black, not white, which that the angel can no longer close may imply a rather pagan divinity – break them. This storm irresistibly propels the linear time passing by, and from the him into the future to which his back is crevice, Baciu could hear their whispering turned, while the pile of debris before in “Romanian”, his poetic language, which him grows skyward. This storm is what had always accompanied him beyond times we call progress.20 and places, crossing any borders. Another quatrain also can be read in Inspired by Paul Klee’s Angelus resonance with Benjamin’s idea about Novus, Benjamin imagined “The angel of History. history” who resists the storm of progress going forward to the paradisiacal future. Poezie ca o mască sau un steag The angel regards the past and tries to Peste ţări şi-oceane ai venit cu mine awaken the dead and to collect the debris in Poezie eşti busolă şi pe drum toiag the ruins of History, which had been Peste ziduri ridicate între vechi ruine. annihilated in the catastrophe caused by that storm. Yet, it was an impossible task in the (Poetry, you are a mask or a flag face of the storm’s strong wind. Across countries and oceans you came Ştefan Baciu’ s poetry in exile overlaps with me with Benjamin’s “The angel of history”. Poetry, you are a compass and a Here, the following quatrain comes into walking stick for the road mind. Over walls standing among old ruins.)22

Între Berna şi Geneva Poetry had always led Baciu in his Paul Klee mă însoţeşte wandering life and helped him survive in îngeri negri încep greva solitary exile, coming over “the skyward şi-mi vorbesc – pe româneşte. debris” (in Benjamin’s words) in the ruins of modern history. Ioana Baciu Margineanu, (Paul Klee accompanies me a Romanian literary critic and Baciu’s sister, Between Berne and Geneva who wrote the preface for Over One Thou- black angels start a strike sand Quatrains, cited the quatrain above in and they talk to me – in Romanian.)21 the preface. In this essay, she discusses the poetic principles of Baciu’s quatrains: “the This quatrain coincidently (or perhaps purpose and means for being able to survive intentionally?) shares a similar theme with in his sorrow and solitude through re-living Benjamin’s “angel of history,” even though his luminous past”23. And about Baciu’s it apparently seems to talk about a personal poetic “geography,” she writes the following: memory during his stay in that

Ştefan Baciu, Archipelagic Poet from Romania an alchemy in which past and present, it into the coral ocean 67 real and unreal and telluric and cosmic and making use of the mutually infiltrate and determine each force of water whirl and other, as in the entity of his poetry, the infiltration in the ocean and seashore. poet creates a self-generated “geography”, Meaning is not generated in diachronic in which his the forest of his birth causal connections and rational explan- place – Tampa, Bucegi – raises the atory systems, but in the poetic hills in the Pacific ocean, the sound of intensity of contingent encounterswith rings in the mioritic space resonates in things in concrete and elastic space. the craters of the Pacific volcanoes. Through this, the archipelagic map (…) Braşov, Bucharest from the poet’s comes to us, liberating our perception young days are combined with cities for the oppression of History and like Berne, Rio de Janeiro, or others recordings in modern temporality into which sound unfamiliar, such as Tegu- the spatial imagination in which rich cigalpa or Cochabamba. Streets in the voices and memories resonate. city hill in Sighişoara connect to the To be aware of the practice of old streets in , a lilac in Anachronism one needs Anatopism, Warte blooms like mandarin in Tonga.24 which is practiced when perception spatializes History. The known de- His quatrains are “his last poetic pendent-territorial “World Map,” as a testament as a poetic continuity which representation of modern nationalism, presents itself in complete lyrical unity.”25 would be disorganized and pushed into She stated that Baciu’s life was in the abeyance by this new cartographic complete unity with his poetry, in which sensibility. Archipelago is the name time and space in his exile are mixed up, given to the force of a new imagination and this unity generates his own specific that generates such an independent- geography. territorial map.26 This poetic geography is the product of the reminiscence of his past to survive his The archipelagic map delicately present. In this process, the linearity of time reflects the exiles’ voices or memories into and the homogeneity of space in our modern the elastic and fluid imaginary space. The consciousness are completely disorganized. contingent events, encounters with people In the archipelagic vision, Imafuku calls this or places, which exiles experienced in kind of deconstruction of the continuity of itinerancy in modern catastrophic history, time and space, the art of “Anachronism are the sources of “Anachronism” and (Parapraxis of Time)” and “Anatopism “Anatopism”. This is also seen as the (Parapraxis of Location)”. principle of Baciu’s poetic geography, charted throughout his exile. To understand the archipelagic vision, it is essential to have an imagination that liberates our thought into space, represented by the liquid form of the sea. In the conventional perception of modern knowledge, our historical recognition has been fiercely temporal- ized. It must be spatialized by pushing

Yoshiro Sakamoto 68 Ocean, he chose it in order to express his deep feelings at the end of his life. Yet, Baciu’s “Anachronism” (to recall the past times in his exile and to mix them 4. Home and the Archipelagic Vision up at present in his poetry writing) and “Anatopism”(his poetic geography as the The archipelagic map is created through result of the spatialization of “Anachronism”) the prism of exiles’ memories, which mix describe “his” Romania not as fixed, various times and places in their itinerancy. substantial or essential, but rather as imag- Yet, naturally, in this map, their lost “homes” ined, dispersing, bleary and even portable. are an important part, since the literary A representative poem which manifests the sentiments of exiles are generated in-between relationship between his “home” and poetry, the attraction of loss or nostalgia and the written in his late years in Hawaii, called repulsion for leaving “home”. These delicate “Home” (in Romanian: “Patria”) is repro- sentiments cause “Anachronism” and duced here. “Anatopism.” This passage examines how Baciu’s “home” activates his poetry in the Home archipelagic vision. As Ioana Baciu Margineanu wrote, I “Baciu’s poetry had been created with the Home is an apple magic of the power of ‘Dor’ (a Romanian in a Japanese grocery window expression for the inexpressive sentiment of on Liliha Street nostalgia or loss)”27, he always felt inex- in Honolulu, Sandwich Islands pressive nostalgia in the face of the loss of or a gramophone record his “home” in his last years. He tried to find heard in silence in Mexico his “home” in exile, to sustain his life even – Maria Tanase beside the volcano during unbearable solitude. Therefore, his Popocatepetl – home country Romania was the privileged home is Brancusi's workshop in Paris source for his poetry. The following quatrain home is a Grigorescu landscape precisely tells it. (…) home is a skylark that soars Am plecat din “Prundul Rozelor” anywhere Nu ştiam ce-i pribegia without borders and without plans Busolă mi-e cuvântul dor home is a Dinu Lipatti concert Corabia mea se cheama România. in Lucerne, Switzerland, on a rainy evening (I left “Rose Gravel” Street. home is this gathering of faces I didn’t know what wandering meant of events and sounds The word dor is my compass scattered across the globe My ship is called Romania.)28 but home is especially Also the fact that he wrote Over One a moment of silence. Thousand Quatrains in Romanian as his language of poetry, tells about his nostalgia. This is home. Even if almost nobody could understand it in the solitary island far off in the Pacific

Ştefan Baciu, Archipelagic Poet from Romania II in Mexico, and the Romanian 69 With home you can talk by telephone, Rhapsody of George Enescu You can hear it in distant whispers, in Port-au-Prince, , etc. Carry it in your pocket, like a comb, The things and people, which got out of Or find it decapitated in the papers. Romania just like Baciu himself, encounter him on his exile journey, and they are It’s not just earth or stone or air, regarded as his “home”. It unboundedly But a smell, a face, a twirl in the park, spreads beyond borders, and it is also the A sound that echoes from anywhere, gathering “of faces / of events and sounds”; A voice that pierces the midnight dark. concrete, tangible and perceptive things or events can represent his home. Yet, on the Because home is not an anthem bound, contrary, an abstract and mysterious expres- illuminated, decorated, with border. sion, “a moment of silence” is emphasized It’s a shroud, in deepest dreams as his “home” more than anything in the last rewound, line. At dawn unravelled, in disorder. In part II – with its manifesto-like writing – Baciu poetically declares what is Nor is home revived by boasts, “home” in his poetry and what he seeks with But by silence, by distance, by sorrow, it. Through the dazzling transformations and Squeezed from dust, on tropic coasts, variations of “home”, he overcomes the Scatter it around the world. in hope. “distance” from it, emphasizing its porta- bility or accessibility. It can suddenly III approach him, like a sound, the wind, or a The steeple of Saint Nicholas in Schei, piercing voice in the dark night. Of course, The echo of the train off Mt. Tâmpa at this poetic practice of the imaginary night, recuperation of his “home” is originally (…) generated from the sorrow of loss and is full Father commenting on War and Peace, of melancholic nostalgia. Yet, here obviously Or a page of poetry by Nietzsche also a bright side of his poetic “home” is (tapping into the book with his index visible. By the distance, by silence, even by finger), sorrow, he scatters “home” around the A cappuccino at the Crown world in hope. He rejects putting it in the national framework, for example, with And this banknote of 500 lei, patriotic anthems or boasts. It doesn’t have Found in the bottom of a yellowed rigid and fixed forms. Rather it is an instant envelope, luminary woven in a dream and unravelled Brought I don't know how, at dawn with pleasure. From Braşov to Brazil, Part III is full of his sentiment of “dor”. And then to Honolulu, Hawai‘i, The beginning lines are the flashbacks of his Island of Oahu, memories of the old days in Romania. They Sandwich Archipelago.29 are juxtaposed with a fable episode, which represents his itinerancy. It’s about the In part I, the consistent repetition of discovery of an envelope enclosing 500 lei “home is…” gives us a deep impression of accompanying him on his entire journey in his nostalgia. Here, the voice of Maria exile without having noticed it. It is surely a Tanase echoes at the bottom of the volcano symbol of Romania, yet it also seems to be

Yoshiro Sakamoto 70 the incarnation of his whole among the important words in his poetry wandering life and his and frequently appear in his quatrains. poetry itself. Or, it may also In the next chapter, I read Baciu’s be a gift from the distance just as a “sea- quatrains as an attempt to survive in his mail letter”, or from “home”, suddenly solitary nostalgia through disclosing a appearing. poetic communion with the world through Taking into consideration his nostalgic the archipelagic vision. writing in the last lines about his journey (Braşov, Brazil, Honolulu, Hawaii, the island of Oafu, Sandwich Archipelago), the 5. The Poetic Communion with the World very last word of this poem, “Archipelago”, doesn’t merely signify the name of a In the last years of his exile when he geographical feature, but the constellation wrote the quatrains, Baciu found himself in of the places that he lived in and he loved, cruel solitude and deep nostalgia, filled with and it implies the dispersive entity of his the atmosphere of his own death. He poetic life. This complex entity itself which sustained his life through writing quatrains created his identity may also be what he everyday, like keeping a “diary of poetry”. calls “home”. “Silence” is one of the most important Thoroughly reading this poem, we can words in his quatrains. There are over one see that Baciu’s “home” doesn’t simply hundred quatrains associated to “silence” in mean his lost country, Romania. Rather, his the book – including many words related to poetry dissolves “Romania” into other places it such as mute (mut or tacut), silence of the world and draws the “independent- (tacere), hush, or the symbolic movement of territorial map” through his rich memories the index finger in front of the mouth, etc. in his exile journey. This map is woven with Mostly, it represents the inexpressive pain two kinds of sentimental orientations, which of his sorrow and nostalgia. This is seem to oppose each other: the sorrow of precisely implied in the following quatrains. melancholic loss and the pleasure of unfolding it into the world with hope. Tăceri cad peste mine seara This paradoxical identification to his şi stam de vorbă fără de cuvinte “home” is also done through overcoming Simt ca pe-o ranită povara the “distance” in his poetry, in the very When the gatherings of old memories instant epiphany of a mysterious sphere: as accompany me. “a moment of silence” or “revived by distance, by silence and by sorrow”, “woven (Silence falls on me at night in dream and unravelled at dawn with and we stand talking without words pleasure”. Even if it is still not clear at this I feel like being with the wounded point what these expressions mean, it is weight significant to verify them, since Over One Când mă’nsoţesc aduceri vechi Thousand Quatrains also has same poetic aminte.)30 principles: it was written in the bi-literal orients – internal struggle of solitary Scriu în aer c’un condei de vis nostalgia and external disclosure of his fluturi zboară peste mine poetry to the world, through combining şi coboară umbra lor pe manuscris “silence”, “distance” and “sorrow” of his într’un mut concert de violine. exile to each other. Actually, they are

Ştefan Baciu, Archipelagic Poet from Romania (I write in the air with a pen of dreams In this quatrain, con- 71 butterflies flapping above me trary to the lament for his and their shadow descending on the lost Romania, he points to manuscript eternity of cosmological elements like: in the mute violin concert.)31 shooting stars, a seahorse and the sun’s speckle. It could be referred to as a Basically, almost all of the quatrains are communion with nature. In this poetic performatively written, meaning that he communion, Baciu dissipates his subjectivity refers to the act of writing the quatrains as a poet into the world. within the quatrain. Silence surrounds Baciu The language of the Archipelagic as a representation of the pain caused by vision is also based on such a mutual speechless nostalgia. The paradox of silence infiltration between words and nature. – writing by not writing– gives a poetic intensity to the quatrains, being the core of Books seeping in like water. Books Baciu’s poetry. For instance, talking without flowing like sand. The letters which words (in No. 287) or writing in the air with unboundedly spawning like corals and a pen of dreams (in No. 295). The silence just nidating on the bottoms of the sea- tells the impossibility of remembering shores around the world. Texts sud- through words, indicating another depth of denly coming up like the music of a re-living the past, as Ioana Baciu Margineanu flute or a drum, and returning again to wrote that his poetry is “the contradicting the forest where they were born. The states of his soul, tonalities loaded with hope for certainty is only found in comfortable sorrow, deep nostalgia or contingency. The words must also melancholy, the dazzling thunder or eruption entrust themselves to contingency, of the Sun, the Moon or the love for life.”32 which is embodied by nature: tides of Apropos, it is a remarkable fact that he the sea, delicate morning dew in describes a butterfly leaving letters on his forests, or shimmering of faint light of manuscript. This theme also repeatedly dawn. Words in the Archipelagic world comes up in the quatrains, also with lizards, don’t have synthesis or comprehension.35 spiders, shooting stars, birds, etc. He tried to dissipate himself as author-subject into the In this vision, “books” are not limited world through finding a source of poetry in to conventional form. “Books” are fluid and the natural elements. It can be said that his infiltrating nature. We can also find a very authorship dissolves into the poetry of the similar idea in one of Baciu’s quatrains. natural world.33 Stele şi litere într’o carte Colecţionar de stele căzătoare sunt ca un câmp de poezie De hippocampi si pete’n soare de foarte aproape, de atât de departe Cu un condei făcut din poezie urechea ascultă, ochiul vede, mână Am înălţat eterna, suferita Romanie! descrie.

(Collector of shooting stars (Stars and letters in a book of a seahorse and of the sun’s speckle I am like a field of poetry with a pen made in poetry from very near, from far away I’ve elevated to eternity, suffering the ear listens, the eye sees, the hand Romania!)34 describes.)36

Yoshiro Sakamoto 72 In Over One Thousand communication beyond linguistic borders Quatrains not only letters among humans. Rather, we can say that but also stars are conceived. Baciu put another connotation on the For him, the book is not only the language, amplifying the common usage of accumulation of literary lines but it is also this word. He often uses this kind of the cosmos of poetry. He listens, sees, and metaphoric terminology for communicating describes from various distances during his to natural elements. Esperento was frequently itinerancy – from near and far. used by him. There are several languages Imafuku respects the force of contin- which are used for communications with gency as the fundamental principle of the such natural elements: the dead language, world. The ecriture of the Archipelagic unedited language, unknown language and language is far off from the will to control so on. or comprehend the world. But it is marked Baciu’s thought about each encounter by the sharing the intensity of the flows of is far from the attempt to comprehend the “relations” intertwined with each other in world, rather a symbolic expression of nature, with the world.37 This attempt can be sharing his poetry with the world or at the done through regarding things and events same time receiving it as a gift from the which approach us as dispersed and porous world. This is the genuine attitude of the “bundles of relations”, not as the enclosed archipelagic vision, which stands against the order of a linear and fixed cause-result monocular “comprehension” through pos- thinking. Everything coming up to him or session or categorization in the modern her is the result of a crossroad where the sense. Imafuku writes as follows on the very strings of “relations” contingently meet. last page of Archipelago-Mundi. One of Baciu’s haikus, called “Solitude” shows the language used to communicate in All things are important. It is required such an encounter, calling it “Esperanto”. of us not to make arbitrary relative merits, but to equally touch them. Yet Singurătatea also, not to shoulder them without Şopârla pe geam making any difference, but to engage Stă de vorbă cu mine dedicatedly and enthusiastically with În esperanto. the events that coincidentally visit you all the time, as an encounter, a chance, (Solitude hospitality or a small grace.39 A lizard on the window stands talking with me In Esperanto.)38

On this tiny creature which suddenly visited Baciu, he seems to reflect his feelings and experiences during itinerancy of exile and feels solitude. The accent of this poem is on “Esperanto,” a language used in the communication between Baciu and the lizard. Baciu’s Esperanto is a term generally used to describe a universal language invented by human beings to seek

Ştefan Baciu, Archipelagic Poet from Romania world. Further navigations 73 6. Conclusion are required and could make vital contributions to various In this article, I tried to outline the discussions in the research of literature, fundamental principle of Baciu’s poetry, especially exile literature. focusing on the connection and resonance between his literary work and Ryuta Imafuku’s archipelagic vision. Overcoming Bibliography the loss of the world in his exile journey caused by the catastrophic modern history, Derek Walcott, “The Sea is History”, his practice of “Anachronism” and “Anato- Collected Poems: 1948-1984, New York, pism” generates his own specific imaginary The Noonday press, 1986. geography with places that are fluid, hybrid Édouard Glissant, La Poetique de la and transformative. Romania is still there, relation [The Poetics of relation], Paris, however as imaginary field of his poetry. It Gallimard, 1990. dissipates in things or events, which con- ---, Traité du Tout-Monde, Paris, Galli- tingently visit him in “silence” while mard, 1997. experiencing the solitude of exile. The George Steiner, Extraterritorial: Papers eternal time of nature made him traverse the and the Literature and the Language indescribable nostalgia of loss, and took him Revolution, New York, Atheneum 1971. to another sphere of the cosmological Koji Taki, Ryuta Imafuku, Eizou no communion with the world. Rekishitetugaku [The Historical Philosophy Many topics to discuss are left, since of Image], Tokyo, Misuzushobo, 2013 Baciu’s literary work is tremendously vast, Ştefan Baciu, Antologia de la Poesia just like the oceans in which he drifted. latinoamricana [Anthology of Latin Ameri- Braşov, Berne, Brazil, Seattle, Honolulu... can Poetry], New York, State University of The poet’s relationship with these places New York Press, 1974 where he had lived and which he visited in ---, Antologia de la poesia surrealista exile, could not be discussed enough here, latinoamericana, [Anthology of Latin even though he had received a lot of American surrealist poetry], Mexico City, inspiration there. Also, the intimate sphere Mortiz, 1974. over the oceans charted throughout his ---, Singur în Singapur [Single in Singa- archipelagic literary activities has to be pore], Honolulu, Editura “MELE”, 1988. focused on. It was built through Baciu’s ---, Poemele Poetului Singur. [The correspondence with countless poets and Lonely Poet’s Poems], Bucharest, Editura writers from the islands around the Pacific Eminescu,1993. Ocean, Latin American countries and all ---, Peste o mie de catrene – sub tâmpa over the world, connecting their literature din Honolulu [Over One Thousand Quat- and poetry by writing articles, editing rains – under Tampa from Honolulu], anthologies or magazines, and translating Braşov, Aldus, 1994 them into many languages. These are very ---, Un Braşovean în arhipelagul Sand- important practices of the archipelagic wich – Hawaii. [A Brasovean in the Archi- vision. The entity of Baciu’s literary works pelago Sandwich Hawaii], Bucharest, Editura is a huge constellation covering the oceans, Eminescu, 1996. which is still unknown and could show us Ryuta Imafuku, Kureorushughi – The another important sphere of the literary Heterology of Culture [Creolism – The

Yoshiro Sakamoto 74 Heterology of Culture], Tokyo, Seidocha, 1991. 4 Ştefan Baciu, Antologia de la Poesia ---, Utsurisumu tamashiitaci Surrealista Latinoamericana, [Anthology of [Emigrating Souls], Tokyo, Chuokoron-sha, Latin American Surrealist Poetry], Mexico 1993. City, Mortiz, 1974. ---, Kokodehanaibasho – To the Passage 5 Ştefan Baciu, Antologia de la Poesia of Image [A place Not Here – To the Passage Latinoamricana [Anthology of Latin Amer- of Image], Tokyo, Iwanamishoten, 2001. ican Poetry], New York, State University of ---, Gunto – Sekairon [Archipelago – New York Press, 1974. Mundi], Tokyo, Iwanamishoten, 2008. 6 Ryuta Imafuku, Utsurisumu tamashiitaci Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, edited [Emigrating Souls], Tokyo, Chuokoron-sha, and introduced by Hanna Arendt, trad. by 1993. p.119. translation by the author of this Harry Zohn, New York, Shocken Books, article (all following citations of Imafuku’s 1968. texts in this article are translated by the author). Website: 7 Ştefan Baciu was regarded as one the most Far Outliers, http://faroutliers.blogspot.- talented young poets in Romania’s interwar- de/2008/07/on-translating-bacius-patria.html period. When he was still 17 years old, he (accessed 20/12/2015) received the prestigious prize for young poets from Carol II and he published his first volume, The Young Poet’s Poems Notes (1935). This is the volume which was republished in Bucharest, 1991 after the end 1 Ştefan Baciu, Peste o mie de catrene – sub of the communist regime and which he was tâmpa din Honolulu [Over One Thousand holding in front of Ryuta Imafuku. quatrains – under Tampa from Honolulu], 8 Imafuku, Emigrating Souls, p. 124. Braşov, Aldus, 1994, p. 151. Engl.: “In the 9 Ibid., p. 126. Archipelago of stars / the rhymes are 10 Ryuta Imafuku, Kokodehanaibasho – To looking for : Braşov and Mele / Guatemala, the Passage of Image [A Place Not Here – Sighişoara / The sound of a fiddle beating in To the Passage of Image], Tokyo, my heart.” “Mele” means “poesy” or “song” Iwanamishoten, 2001. in Hawaiian. It is also the name of Baciu’s 11 George Steiner in his book Extra- most representative literary magazine, which teritorial: Papers and the Literature and the contained contributions by his fellow poets Language Revolution (1971) stated that and writers from all over the world in over modern literature cannot be told by con- 11 languages. In this article all poems ventional national literatures, but it was written by Baciu were translated into made by innumerous exiles, refugees, English by the author of the article. diasporas, wanderers, homeless out of their 2 Édouard Glissant, Traité du Tout-Monde, countries through his concept of Paris, Gallimard, 1997, p. 237. Engl.: “What “Extraterritorial”. is the Archipelago? / The dispersion of not- 12 Ryuta Imafuku, Gunto – Sekairon [Archi- to-be / it reassembles the being of world / pelago – Mundi], Tokyo, Iwanamishoten, The being like beings.” 2008. 3 Ryuta Imafuku, Kureorushughi – The Het- 13 Ibid., in The sea notes. erology of Culture [Creolism – The Heter- 14 It is required to distinguish this ology of Culture], Tokyo, Seidocha, 1991. terminology “vernacular” from essentialist

Ştefan Baciu, Archipelagic Poet from Romania 75

concepts like “native”, “tradition” “origin” island in the Caribbean sea, one of the most or “national”. “Vernacular” culture is not influential poets or philosophers for based on the exclusive origin of the culture Imafuku’s archipelagic vision, he wrote: “ restricted to a certain place but on the In his (Glissant’s) book the Poetics of knowledge woven in dynamic cultural “Relations” (Gallimard,1990), he named processes which happens in this place. For ‘the place of relations’, the place where the example, in Baciu’s poetry, the “Ukulele” – innumerous torsions of events and memories the beautiful Hawaian “vernacular” instru- are generated and the flow of ‘History’ – ment often appears. The ukulele is not constructed in a quasi-consistent form of “originally” invented in the archipelago time – is cut off. He strongly believes that Sandwich-Hawaii, but its archetype was the manner of the archipelagic storytelling – brought from the archipelago Azoles in connecting such tangled yarn balls of Portugal and developed during the colo- ‘relations’ – requires new ways of under- nization of Hawaii. It is a remarkable fact standings of beings. “ It means to regard the that the ukulele has its origin in dynamic world as the entity of fluid flows and cultural fluidity over the ocean. It is surely dynamic crossings of “relations” beyond understandable that Baciu identified with normative and static perceptions of time and this wandering instrument to express his space. love for the Hawaiian islands. See Baciu’s 16 Derek Walcott, “The Sea is History”, short essay about the ukulele, “Waikiki Collected Poems: 1948-1984, New York, care a fost… (Waikiki once upon a time )” The Noonday Press, 1986, p. 364. in A Braşovean in the Archipelago Sand- 17 His anthologies, translations or independent wich Hawaii (1996). literary magazines consist of a lot of poems 15 Here, I’d like to briefly introduce the written by poets of exile and resistance from theoretical background of Archipelago – the oppressive regimes like communist Mundi. Imafuku’s vision is surely influ- Romania or the Latin-American countries of enced by post-colonial theories, traveling dictatorship. As an example, he had enthu- theories or global studies established by siastically translated the poems of Nica- Edward Said, James Clifford, Arjun raguan poet Ernst Cardenal into German and Appadurai or many others which have introduced his poetry works into Europe. already theorized cultural contact, exchange Cardenal had been a main member of or fluidity beyond the national, racial, ethnic Nicaraguan Sandinista. Owing to Baciu’s or language borders. However, rather his translation, he received Peace Prize of the Archipelago-Mundi takes distance from the German Book Trade in 1980. In 2005, he (sometimes euro-centric) theoretical meth- was nominated for the Nobel Prize in odologies, since the force of poesy, which is Literature. fundamental for cultural practice, frequently 18 Koji Taki, Ryuta Imafuku, Eizou no has been left out of their theoretical sphere. Rekishitetugaku [The Historical philosophy Imafuku deals with the intensity of the force of Image], Tokyo, Misuzushobo, 2013, p. 6. of poesy itself as “poetics of the relations”, 19 Ibid., p.4. Acturally, just before the fable rather than through an attempt of theoretical of the Titanic’s foundering, Taki places the comprehension or unification. About Eduard short passage about Benjamin’s “The Angel Glissant, a creole poet from the Martinique of History”.

Yoshiro Sakamoto 76

20 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, edited Partially, the author of this article modified and introduced by Hanna Arendt, trad. by the translated lines to respect the nuance of Harry Zohn, New York, Shocken Books, the original text. 1968, pp. 257-258 (Emphasis mine). 30 Ştefan Baciu, Over One Thousand 21 Ştefan Baciu, Over one thousand of Quatrains, p. 86. The number of this quatrains, p. 135. The number of this quatrain is 287. quatrain is 479. He noted “Muzeul Klee” 31 Ibid., p. 88. The number of this quatrain is (Klee Museum) after the quatrain. 295. 22 Ştefan Baciu, Over One Thousand 32 Ibid., p. 10, in the preface written by Quatrains, p.14. The quatrain number is 7. Ioana Baciu Mărgineanu. 23 Ibid., p. 9: in the preface written by Ioana 33 The manuscript written by the natural Baciu Mărgineanu. element is also seen in other quatrains. For 24 Ibid., p. 10: in the preface written by example: Una mie de catrene/ quatrainsam Ioana Baciu Mărgineanu. scris ca’n vis/ marea şi cântec de sirene/ mi- 25 Ibid., p. 10: in the preface written by a fost manuscris. Engl.: One thousand Ioana Baciu Mărgineanu. quatrains/ I wrote them like in a dream/ The 26 Ryuta Imafuku, Archipelago - Mundi, pp. sea and song of Siren/ wrote the manuscript 77-78. for me, Ibid., p. 273. The number of this 27 Ştefan Baciu, Over One Thousand quatrain is 1000(A). Quatrains, pp. 9-10. In the preface written 34 Ibid., p. 189. The number of this quatrain by Ioana Baciu Mărgineanu. is 673. 28 Ibid., p. 156. The number of this quatrain 35 Ryuta Imafuku, Archipelago – Mundi, is 564. “The Sea Notes” (Emphasis mine). 29 Ştefan Baciu, Poemele Poetului Singur. 36 Ştefan Baciu, Over One Thousand [The Lonely Poet’s Poems], Bucharest, Quatrains, p. 185. The number of this Editura Eminescu, 1993, pp. 138-140. I quatrain is 659. adapt English translation which is found on 37 See Édouard Glissant’s “The Poetics of the following website: Far Outliers, ‘Relation’”, introduced in footnote nr. 15. http://faroutliers.blogspot.de/2008/07/on- 38 Ştefan Baciu, Singur în Singapur [Single translating-bacius-patria.html in Singapore], Honolulu, Editura “MELE”, (accessed 20/12/2015). 1988, p. 46. 39 Ryuta Imafuku, Archipelago – Mundi, p. 498.