Traveling With the Ghosts by Stella Vinitchi Radulescu. Asheville, North Carolina: Orison Books, 2021. 107 pages. $16.00, paperback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
invocation<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n by Stella Vinitchi Radulescu<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n those eyes you love<\/p>\n\n\n\n the violet eyes<\/p>\n\n\n\n of Spring the girl<\/p>\n\n\n\n descending <\/p>\n\n\n\n the hill or Spring<\/p>\n\n\n\n itself in violent<\/p>\n\n\n\n wind\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n let me clean the air<\/p>\n\n\n\n with a vowel<\/p>\n\n\n\n or two & start <\/p>\n\n\n\n the healing can you be <\/p>\n\n\n\n more human <\/p>\n\n\n\n Death<\/p>\n\n\n\n as we are flying now on our<\/p>\n\n\n\n broken<\/p>\n\n\n\n wings <\/p>\n\n\n\n Traveling With the Ghosts<\/em>, Stella Vinitchi Radulescu\u2019s latest collection of poetry, demonstrates how immense language can become when distilled. Between these pages, the sounds of leaves and shade spell out names, poems take as tangible a shape as mountains, and rivers become what cleans \u201cthe void \/ between your soul & your \/ tongue.\u201d Yet despite the physical power of words to call down old gods and scrub the air clean, Radulescu\u2019s work in this collection occupies the tenuous spaces that wisdom and keen observation uncover in the world. In poems as musical as they are meditative, images grow inside the speaker, language weighs upon the body, and exterior surroundings impose themselves, like \u201chills darkening on your tongue.\u201d There is psychological and spiritual power in the reciprocal exchanges between the body and what it bears witness to, and this is Radulescu\u2019s currency: \u201cI don\u2019t have wings \/ but I can fly with all the leaves \/ the birds the clouds \/ I speak your language god \/ & you speak mine.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n These are vivid, singular poems that refuse easy truths and settle best in hands open to the challenges that visit when they attempt to hold onto nothing, or everything. \u201cstay by your night stay by your \/ emptiness \/\/ it will call you,\u201d Radulescu affirms: \u201cthis is how shadow by shadow \/ & void by void I put together \/ a new sentence.\u201d Just as the speaker remains open to the world and to the voids we pull language from, readers must open themselves to these poems. And as vivid images and profound realizations spill into one another throughout Radulescu\u2019s sparsely punctuated, heavily lineated work, any demands that the reader entered with for absolute, binary certainty on matters of presence\/void or language\/silence will begin to slip away. This is the gift of Radulescu\u2019s Traveling With the Ghosts<\/em>: providing a space outside of the definite, or the confines of the sure, in which readers may discover and rediscover the divine scope of language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n -Samuel Burt, MAR<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n dusk dusk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n by Stella Vinitchi Radulescu<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n find<\/p>\n\n\n\n a rhyme ask<\/p>\n\n\n\n our gods to light<\/p>\n\n\n\n a candle<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n the page lies<\/p>\n\n\n\n blank<\/p>\n\n\n\n too far the stars<\/p>\n\n\n\n too deep the grave <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n speak your<\/p>\n\n\n\n life<\/p>\n\n\n\n a word can burn<\/p>\n\n\n\n forever<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Traveling With the Ghosts by Stella Vinitchi Radulescu. Asheville, North Carolina: Orison Books, 2021. 107 pages. $16.00, paperback. invocation by… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[29,30,28],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-poetry","tag-review","tag-stella-vinitchi-radulescu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}