In the presence of Constantin Abaluta, you instinctively feel the need to pay excessive attention to the way you look or to pick up invisible lint on your sleeves. However, the author of “COrtita lui Pessoa” (“Pessoa’s mole”) is neither a lonely, nor a grumpy man, on the contrary he values friendship and likes to talk about his friends, even if some of them (George Almosnino or Vasile Petre Fati, for instance) have passed away.
He also likes to help young people, whose literary attempts he reads with the patience of a Benedictine and the severity of a meticulous critic, analysing every word and syllable.
He has never been what people call a “fashionable poet,” maybe because his discretion, that of a genuine literary aristocrat, kept his poetry away from any shrillness, or any obvious touch and spared him of those environments where people share the fake pearls of success and their petty victories.
Constantin Abaluta is one of the few inhabitants of the literary world whom you can hardly picture as the protagonist of some funny story that appeals to “literary sub-history” fans.
Those who could not deny Abaluta acknowledged him as one of the most outstanding lyrical voices and had to accept that (especially in his latest works) Constantin Abaluta reached the formula of a purified lyricism and that everything this writer, who couldn’t care less about circus fans, put on paper was great poetry, not just poetry.
When I met Constantin Abaluta, I was impressed by his painfully delicate physiognomy, revealing some kind of inner, secret music, a face that made me remember the melancholic touch of a Proust phrase.
Then I discovered that his face had that spectral appearance of a man searching for le temps perdu et le temps retrouve. If I were to give good old Mr. Swann the appearance of a real man, I would certainly lend him the face of Constantin Abaluta.
This is why we should not be surprised that his latest poems (abounding in strange rooms, full of old objects and of steamy mirrors, or in streets having a peaceful, unreal aspect) are subordinated to the journey along time meanders and black holes.
On the other hand, these poems contain a refined simplicity that points to the man of good taste having the sound judgement of former esthetes who knew to enjoy both the beauty of an alexandrine and the ineffable shiver of a small, colourful touch. And I have in mind especially those decadent esthetes, with their absinthe drinkers, suffering with beauty and suavity.
A disease that, in Constantin Abaluta’s poems, takes the shape of the dream to fly and of the desire to disappear in the unreal matter of a transparent sea of air.
I do not want to wrong the man of taste, therefore I cannot ignore the fact that Constantin Abaluta has just published a huge anthology of poetry entitled “The Romanian poetry after proletcultism.”
The anthology pays special attention to the ’60-’70 generations and its texts are accompanied by pertinent comments, revealing Constantin Abaluta as one of the most competent readers (not only authors) of poetry, whose poetic culture (also due to his translation work) could hardly be equaled by today’s poets.
Due to these comments of unusual proportions, Constantin Abaluta’s anthology could be entitled (just like the one of Marin Mincu) “The history of Romanian poetry after proletcultism,” or even (why not) “Book of poetry,” as, provided such books were still written, Constantin Abaluta would be one of the personalities entitled to get involved in their elaboration.
As to his latest poems, they have already been gathered in a tome that will be entitled “The city the sea the streets that disappear” (without a comma, as the author emphasises).
The first section (“The city the sea”) is a poem made up of 500 lines, the second one (“Streets that disappear”) will comprise prose poems, recently read at the Writers’ Union Symposium.
The success they enjoyed there makes me believe that this new book will offer poetry readers a rare and generous gift, just like all the gifts Constantin Abaluta has offered us lately.