Cristina Crâsmariu Crâciunescu (1956-1994)
December Poems
Issue 174 · 1996
This article presents a selection of poems by Cristina Crâsmariu Crâciunescu (1956-1994), a Romanian poetess and priest's wife who died at the age of thirty-eight, translated from Romanian by Anca Vasiliu. The article takes the form of a poetic translation accompanied by a brief biographical introduction. The poems, organized around titles with strong theological resonance — "Hesychasm," "Theophany," "Anastasia," "Prayer" — bear witness to an intense inner spirituality, marked by the quest for silence, divine light, and union with God. The contribution of this collection lies in bringing to light an obscure Romanian Orthodox poetic voice, whose spare and non-programmatic writing connects, through its very form, with the categories of Eastern mystical theology, particularly hesychasm, without ever explicitly theorizing them.
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