Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

(Background: Claudiu Komartin is a Romanian poet of the 2000s generation - loved by some, loathed by others, more often noted today for his cultural events and the books he releases at his publishing house than for his poetry. He is associated with "visionary poetry", a post-expressionist trend that harkens back to Rimbaud's visionarism. While minimalists tend to hate stylistic devices and "bookish" poetry, visionary poets are somewhat baroque and re-enact the myth of the "damned poet", poor and alcoholic or on drugs. Komartin's poetry has been accused of artificiality and "emo" emphasis, yet, at least in the following book, critics say there is a social dimension too to the narcissistic "visions".)

I consider "cobalt" a significant improvement over Komartin's previous volumes. It feels like a concept book, even though one in the form of a collage with (sometimes very) disparate elements.

There are a few repetitions and some other devices that I hardly consider efficient, and if I was in his place, I would have probably put the poems in a different order. Nevertheless, the poems sometimes manage the rare feat of being very authentic and very baroque in the same time. An uncanny balance of the expressionist and mannerist elements that, otherwise, readers of his poetry are already familiar with. And I can't help but give a big bonus point for the graphic concept (Ana Toma being a graphic artist with mysteriously high amounts of creativity) and the very effective visual poems.

Here is a fragment from "Poem for the Last Ones" (translation improvised by me, sorry if it isn't good):

Too sensible, maybe. Born killers, no doubt.
This is not music. This is no longer poetry.
Just a vibration of things when falling in void,
nature embracing the genetic anomaly, the experimental
paradise, the wars without meaning or end,
the fascination of snuff, the fitness, the slow motion
of the poor gears deluded with immortality -
our house is smashed to pieces,
death howls through the roof, but
some still have the dream and the sleeptalking,
the blanket pulled over head, the speculation without object,
the ridiculous
defensive gestures in the face of the invasion, the nailbiting, the nicotine,
the antidepressants and the drugs that disrupt,
teeth mumbling death, shedding dead meat and skin,
dead nerves, self-retracted ribs,
the cedars of Liban knocked down, some last morons
cursing what gives life just for the sake of humiliation and submission,
the promised crumb of bright future,
the unlimited potential of a race buried in
mass market products, cold manipulated food,
and above all, the rivers of hate,
the cascades of shit.
Nothing remains. Finally it's over.
"Mutter, ich bin dumm."

I really appreciate the work you're putting into these reviews, providing us with the background and also a translation. I love getting some insight into the poetry scenes in other countries.

In the poem above, if he had stopped at line 8, I would have liked it quite a bit but it did seem to just keep getting more and more needlessly gross and extreme, to be going for shock rather than meaning.

It's apocalyptic, it is extreme, but in his generation there were even more extreme poets - especially the female poets who, influenced by Angela Marinescu, make violent intimate confessions that have a lot to do with the visceral. Sexual and all other sorts of organs and blood all over the poems - I'm not joking, the above poem is easy to read compared to Elena Vlădăreanu or Oana Cătălina Ninu.