Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed

Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed
By Andrei Guruianu

Last night I had the pleasure of hosting the poets Susan Deer Cloud and Michael Czarnecki at our library for a discussion and reading.  The moderately sized group was split down the middle age-wise, eight teens and eight adults.  I was incredibly impressed by what the teens had already been through in their lives and how they had used poetry to give themselves a voice.  It was an inspirational evening and made me think I’d like to talk about a poetry book this morning. 

I don’t have anything in the library collection by Susan Deer Cloud yet but she mentioned another poet who she worked with at Binghamton University, Andrei Guruianu.  He has read and conducted workshops here in the past so I knew I had his books on the shelf.  I selected a book which was published by Michael Czarnecki’s Foothills Publishing, called Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed.

Andrei Guruianu came to America from Romania as a young man which makes the themes of tradition, family, immigration and relationships at home in his writing. 

The ties to the old country come through in Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed as he walks with his grandfather through a melon patch while The Romania I Remember summons forth people singing “songs of pain and songs of joy.”  The pain of leaving family behind in less than ideal conditions echoes in Abandoned.

A wry humor speaks in Yes, it’s true.  A little bit bitter as well? He responds to people who bring up Dracula when they hear he is Romanian. 

as you’ve probably suspected,

at night I secretly file my canines

into sharp points

before crawling into the coffin

I keep hidden in the bedroom closet. 

Grandfather reminded me of my sister, hearing her own name at our Grandmother’s funeral. I was only eight at the time but I’ve never forgotten her reaction.

They speak of you, Andrei

the one I’ve never met

whose name I carry. 

I have always preferred family names, names carried on by the next generation.  Though my daughter’s first name is her own, her middle name is one she shares with my grandmother, my mother and myself.

Reasons for Sleeping 

I’ve realized that I no longer

look forward to falling asleep at night

just to get some rest.

I sleep to stop thinking,

Being the mother of a small child, I fall asleep quickly and hope it will last, that I won’t be woken in the night by the siren of a wail, but I still identified strongly with this poem.  I was thinking the other day how I more fully understand these days what it means to be an adult, to feel the weight of the world pressing down because I worry how it might all affect my child at some point.  I never worried so much until I became a mother.

The author probably would have preferred that I write about more recent books, such as his most recent, Postmodern Dogma.  Hopefully he isn’t too chagrined that I went back to his first.  I think if you start at the beginning, with this book, you’ll continue reading.  You know where to find them.  If they are all checked out, you can find him online at http://www.andreiguruianu.com/