Flavia Cosma is an award winning Romanian-born Canadian poet, author and translator. She has a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest. Later she studied Drama at the Community School of Arts—Bucharest, Romania. She is also an award winning independent television documentary producer, director, and writer, and has published twenty three books of poetry, a novel, a travel memoir and five books for children. Her work has been represented in numerous anthologies in various countries and languages, and her book, 47 Poems, (Texas Tech University Press) received the ALTA Richard Wilbur Poetry in Translation Prize.
Cosma was nominated three times for The Pushcart Prize with poems from Leaves of a Diary (2006), The Season of Love (2008) and Thus Spoke the Sea (2008).
Flavia Cosma was awarded Third Prize in the John Dryden Translation Competition- 2007, for co-translating In The Arms of The Father, poems by Flavia Cosma, (British Comparative Literature Association & British Literary Translation Centre)
Cosma’s Songs at the Aegean Sea made the Short List in the Canadian Aid Literary Awards Contest, Dec. 2007. Her translation into Romanian of Burning Poems by George Elliott Clarke was published in Romania in 2006. Her translation from Spanish into Romanian of work by the Argentinean poet Luis Raul Calvo was published in 2009 under the title Nimic Pentru Aici, Nimic Pentru Dincolo. Her translation of work by the USA poet Gloria Mindock was published in 2010 under the title La Porţile Raiului. Her translation into English of Profane Uncertainties by the Argentinean poet Luis Raul Calvo was published by Cervena Barva Press in 2010.
Cosma’s poetry book Leaves of a Diary was studied at the University of Toronto E. J. Pratt Canadian Literature during the school year 2007-2008.
Flavia Cosma received the Title of Excellence for outstanding contribution in the promotion and enrichment of the Romanian culture within the European region and throughout the world, awarded by The International Festival “Lucian Blaga”, XXIX edition, Sebeş-Alba, Romania, 2009.
Flavia was decorated with the Golden Medal and was appointed Honorary Member by the Casa del Poeta Peruano, Lima, Peru, 2010, for her poetry and her work as an international cultural promoter.
Flavia Cosma is the director of the International Writers’ and Artists’ Residency, Val-David, Quebec, Canada.
Flavia Cosma: http://www.flaviacosma.com
The celestial orange
Tumbles noisily
On high stony steps.
Naked men squander themselves into waves,
A blond adolescent accompanies them cheerfully;
The sea rattles her bracelets, her bosom.
The transparence of simple things
Enchants me.
Young voices admire my garment.
I pick myself up out of old illnesses.
All is beautiful, beautiful indeed,
The wind whispers softly, bringing back to life from the abyss
Souls overfull with the great sleep and who,
Stretching lazily, take up again rapturously
The pink-colored dance
With the sea and the sky.
4 (On Paths Known to No One)
A nymph bathes in the sea,
A satyr wakens from his dream,
Into the silvery, ever-traveling tide
A solitary man-fish swims.
The evening –a brave maiden-
Descends over us.
Flocking in white bands,
Riding their winged horses,
And laughing,
The Gods sail away.
The sun leaves,
The sun turns back;
Quiet waves, dancing,
Kiss the sandy shore,
The summer reigns,
The barns are brimming,
Peace settles gently
Over our thoughts.
Everything is flower,
Everything is light,
Everything bears fruit,
All is well.
19 (On Paths Known to No One)
At this shore,
The pebbles are smaller,
The tide more serene,
The waves hoarier.
At this shore,
I can read my future in stones,
In the meandering lines of their palms.
On this beach, they predict a long life for me,
And a multitude of birds flying by.
To this shore,
I came to hide away,
Here, where no one
Knows about me yet,
In the shadows of sorrows lived through by others,
And of white crosses
Carved into rocks.
Premonitions
The sun spreads out on the expanse of waves,
The sea moulds unknown longings.
A lonely slipper drifts off the coast,
Wistfully, the old sorceress swims.
A wave, –a blue mollusk—
Whispering, prowls about.
Perhaps, for all that,
It will rain tonight.
Perhaps God will decide it’s time to shed some tears.
Maybe I’ll be able to weep too,
For the little soul
Buried under the rocks.
The sea lures me
With wines from the depth.
A golden crest dreams of faraway places.
The strong odors of wind and algae
Will bring on the rain
Before long.
Beyond
Beyond these walls there is the sea;
Beyond these chairs,
Left empty in dreams,
Beyond the houses burnt and collapsed,
Beyond dark curtains, helplessly flapping
Over empty window sockets,
Lies the color blue,
A steely blue,
A piercing, stony blue—
The Sun’s bride,
Now tear-stained, then exceedingly beautiful,
The eternal sea, a foamy answer
To the dreams of the night
And to the infinite longing.
Poetry in this post: © Flavia Cosma
Published with the permission of Flavia Cosma