Here are fifty-four poems by the Romanian poet Marin Sorescu. The poems were written (to quote the poet) "So that researchers of the year 4000 / Will certify that I existed / Around the middle of the 20th Century. / More or less." They are characterized by irony—"We wonder at nothing, / We make constant progress"—and a sense of surprise—"We learned at every turn / To be everlasting." Symmetries has been translated by John Robert Colombo, a Toronto poet and editor, and Petronela Negosanu, a Bucharest translator and writer.

A leading Romanian man-of-letters, Marin Sorescu was born of Otenian stock on February 18, 1936, in the village of Bulzeşti, in the district of Dolj, Romania. He graduated with a degree in Philology from the University of Işai in 1960. He has worked as an editor on the literary paper Luceafărul, as a producer with the Anima film studio in Bucharest and as editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine Ramuri.

Marin Sorescu's profile page

John Robert Colombo, who edited and annotated Worlds in Small, is known as the Master Gatherer for his many compilations of the lore and literature of Canada. Colombo has complied, translated, and written over eighty books. He co-translated into English five books of Bulgarian literature, not to mention books of verse originally written in Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, etc. In the field of native studies he has compiled Windigo, Poems of the Inuit, Songs of the Indians, and Songs of the Great Land. Among his large-scale literary anthologies are The Poets of Canada and Colombo’s Book of Canada. He edited Other Canada, the country’s first anthology of science fiction and fantasy, and beginning with Mysterious Canada, he has written or complied six books of Paranormal Canadiana. These books, plus media appearances, have earned him the title "Canada’s Mr. Mystery."

John Robert Colombo's profile page

Petronela Negoşanu is a Bucharest translator and writer.

Petronela Negoşanu's profile page