A Celebration of Nichita Stanescu Set for 10/3 at NYC's Poets House

Join Archipelago Books, Poets House, and the Romanian Cultural Institute for a night of poetry in honor of Nichita St?nescu - "the greatest contemporary Romanian poet" (Tomaž Šalamun) - and Sean Cotter's remarkable translation of Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems. With readings by actor Vasile Flutur and Sean Cotter, in conversation with Saviana St?nescu. Wine and cheese reception to follow.

Wednesday, October 3, 7 p.m.
Poets House
10 River Terrace
New York, NY
$10, $7 for students and seniors, free to Poets House members

Nichita St?nescu (1933-1983) was the most beloved and groundbreaking Romanian poet of the twentieth century. St?nescu transformed Soviet-style aesthetics from within, infusing the tangible world with a metaphysical poetry all his own. St?nescu received the Herder Prize in 1975 and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1979.

Winner of the Herder Prize, Nichita St?nescu was one of Romania's most celebrated contemporary poets. This dazzling collection of his poems-the most extensive collection of his work to date-reveals a world in which heavenly and mysterious forces converse with the everyday and earthbound, where love and passion and a quest for truth are central, and urgent questions flow. His startling images stretch the boundaries of thought. His poems, at once surreal and corporeal, lead us into new metaphysical and linguistic terrain.

Sean Cotter's translations from the Romanian include Liliana Ursu's Lightwall and Nichita Danilov's Second-hand Souls. His essays, articles, and translations have appeared in Conjunctions, Two Lines, and Translation Review. He is Associate Professor of Literature and Literary Translation at The University of Texas at Dallas, Center for Translation Studies. Cotter's translation of Mircea C?rt?rescu's Blinding is forthcoming from Archipelago Books.

Vasile Flutur earned his MA in Acting from the National University of Theater and Film in Bucharest, Romania. He has appeared in the shorts A Woman in the Sun, In the Forest, and When Men Truly Become Free, and has translated plays by Harold Pinter, Noel Coward, Sam Shepard, and Patrick Shanley into Romanian.

Saviana St?nescu is an award-winning Romanian-American poet, playwright, and journalist. She is currently the NYSCA playwright-in-residence for Women's Project, writer-in-residence of East Coast Artists, and Director of the New Drama Program for the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York. She is assistant professor of theater at Ithaca College, teaches at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, and holds an MA in Performance Studies (Fulbright fellow) and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU.