Traveling with the Ghosts

      the meaning       slips

                                                away

– from “through my hair the wind”

Often, when we find ourselves in moments of drought (of time, of energy, of inspiration), we turn to artists, musicians, and writers almost as authorities whose duty it is to uplift us, to give us immutable answers to our most existential questions. When the meaning slips away, we forget that art is not, in fact, a savior, but rather a tool used to tap into the most vulnerable self. Poetry, in particular, is a tool of empathy, and that is what I find particularly compelling about Stella Vinitchi Radulescu’s new English-language collection, Traveling with the Ghosts: its compassionate approach to feelings of fear, banality, and despair.

This timely collection, now available for pre-order with Orison Books, is an exploration of that metaphysical place where language and thought meet. This is not a book that instructs, it is one that feels, and it feels deeply. Yes, there is much to despair—all the “bloody boots” and “long dead / dreams.” But hidden in the nooks are small kindnesses: the “occasion / to wear a crown,” the “Picasso on the wall play[ing] / with the sun,” the moralities that root down deep, steadfast in the face of corruption.

A fascinating tension in Traveling is that between the necessity of language to create something meaningful and the simultaneous acknowledgement of language as an imperfect vessel susceptible to misidentifying and vanishing altogether. Paired with Radulescu’s deft manipulation of soft, almost inconspicuous sounds, this anxiety comes to a head in these lines from “adoration of the magi”:

objects have a soul

you think they don't & trample them

down & give them names

when names get lost in time—

In these lines, naming parallels violence. As etymological history often reveals—yes, I’m looking at you, orca whales and “terrible lizards”—naming obscures the true nature of a thing, and with so many remarkable creatures disappearing forever, how will we remember those lost to time? What does it mean to face the impermanence of one’s thoughts, one’s family, one’s legacy? We “tell our children / stories of war,” and yet “silence is [still] leaking.” We speak “in many languages & / still can’t find / the final word.” There is no real resolution to this tension (after all, how can there be?), but instead, an understanding is reached in the final poem of the collection, “minus infinity”: sometimes the most appropriate thing to say is nothing at all—

there is nothing else

to say

        the explosion is over

In line with the quiet restraint found elsewhere in the book, Radulescu is sparse in her use of imagery, but the images she chooses to include are careful and tragic, sparking to life when placed beside more subtle moments of intimacy. Take these few lines from “drought,” for instance:

I read Šalamun    New York

is burning

it will      it did      you want

pistachios my little god

of everything

In this moment, Radulescu speaks disaster into the same breath as an everyday moment of tenderness. By revising her tense three times in the phrase “New York is burning,” she even signals that tragedy itself is our day-to-day. As a testament to that truth, many of these poems live in this space of ongoing loss: “the past is dying on the / future’s tongue : taste of fire / cities covered / in dust” (elegy, 33).

But all of this is not to say that the work is dreary or defeatist: these are not meager crumbs of joy in the bleak wood of reality. On the contrary, these poems are awe-inspiring. The “you” in “drought”, being the speaker’s “little god / of everything”, looms far larger in the world of the poem than the burning of New York. This does not mean that the grief is no longer there, but that love and growth can thrive amid despair. The grace with which Radulescu (a trilingual poet writing in English, French, and Romanian) handles the melodies of the English language is unparalleled and a compliment to her delicate treatment of complex feelings of grief: “let me clean the air / with a vowel / or two & start / the healing” (invocation, 6). The lifeblood of the book is the way its accessible, lilting rhythm contributes to its ongoing sense of hope when nothing is certain, not even the very form it is recorded in.

In short, Stella Vinitchi Radulescu shines in this collection. She does not preach to her readers, but still leaves them with page after page of wisdom to consider, break apart, and piece back together once more—

some understanding comes from

a star

rowing the silence (epiphany, 91).

Traveling with the Ghosts is due for publication on December 7, 2021.