Poetry
Jurnal de sex
Not translated into English
Geo Bogza · 1929
Synopsis
Seventeen unpublished poems, which the journal unu announced in April 1929 as ultrasexual and presented the following month as the picture of a decomposed eroticism, according to Jurnalul. Written in the first person, in a sharp and convulsive manner, they speak of desire in a trivial language and make woman, according to Aurelia Micu Năstase, a flesh that gives pleasure; Paul Cernat, whom she quotes, sees in them a monograph of the pure erotic instinct. Ovidiu Morar ranks them among the avant-garde verses in which the young poet seeks shock through deliberately crude images.
Context
The collection appeared in Paris in 1929, in the series of the review Integral, in one hundred and eighteen copies according to Nicolae Tzone, cited by Jurnalul; it was Ilarie Voronca who had advised this title, judged more prudent. Critics received it rather well, but a columnist of Vremea made indecency the first trait of this poetry, and George Călinescu mocked ill-appeased senses. Aurelia Micu Năstase links to this book a trial for pornography, held behind closed doors and concluded in November 1932 by an acquittal; Jurnalul rather ties the prosecutions to the following book.
Who it is for
A slim booklet of raw, brief poems, born in the avant-garde reviews; no French or English translation of the collection is known.
Prizes and reception
It is seen as the touchstone of the then emerging Romanian surrealist avant-garde.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.