The Clear Sky: Poems in Romanian by Stefan Manasia translated into English by Clara Burghelea - Paperback

Ștefan Manasia is a visionary Romanian poet whose poetic apetite and appreciation for the linguistic play have become a trademark. The Clear Sky is an exploration of the urban landscape and the power of habitation. In a synthesis of imaginative leaps, mundane joys and intimate lyric, the collection probes the relationship between creativity and human nature. The reader vacillates between the surprising exuberance of the poet's formal choices and the autobiographical meandering of their content.

Ștefan Manasia writes a protean, paradoxical poetry, contradictory like life itself, a synthesis of realism and visionary thinking, erudition and intense emotion, implosion and explosion, cruelty and tenderness. He can persuade his readers of love and paternity, as well as of destruction and horror. He can cite from the great poetry of the past, though the media culture is also present in his writing. His poems are, as Frank O'Hara would say, "meditations in an emergency".

The poet considers himself part of "the generation of extinction" but this is rather a chance to him. The clear sky arc of meditation spreads across the semantic splinters of his poetry, a kind of silencer, of very special detachment that is a Manasia trademark in the Romanian contemporary poetry.

-Mircea Cărtărescu, author of Solenoid and Theodoros