-- Constance Vulliamy, ex-Park CollegeMeanings The meanings keep popping up and jumping into awareness. The line from "Genesis" -- "Into the barrenness the vibrancy and growth of life" -- is reflective of celebration out of chaos. The more I read and re-read it, I am tempted to add, "It's prophetically global."
-- Gilbert E. Fleer, Professor/Counselor, Social Science, Wester Texas College
The American critic, poet, and university professor Thomas Amherst Perry has included in his recent book of poetry FROM THESE ROOTS AND OTHER POEMS a number of English translations, from Tudor Arghezi and Ion Barbu. This should come as no suprise to those who remember Perry as the first American Fulbright lecturer at the University of Bucharest, after the resumption of Romanian-American cultural relations in 1963-64 . . . a "historical figure." . . . In the course of thre4e decades he has become a recognized specialist in Romanian studies.
The deep affective encounter between Romanian poetry and Perry's own poetic work has been facilitated by religious and ideological affinities. The author is a religious spirit. . . . This spirit permeates poems like "Jesus on the Mount of Temptation," "I AM," and "Genesis." One can recognize a subdued-ironic melancholy in "O Brave New World," which ends in a meditation on Chaos and Nothingness."
The ideological facet of Perry's spiritual predilection . . . is a traditionalism of cultural "roots," . . . from which he excludes "ethnic chauvinists . . . who distort this heritage into a racist fetish." His life experience has taught the author that there is an "inexorable and continuing interplay between a native and other heritages." Perry's verses record such and interplay:" "the Puerto Rico of my boyhood," but also the Romanian world of "Eliade, Brancusi, Ionesco, Tzara, Celan, and Cioran." This cross-cultural and spiritual encounter has given the poet "new insights, different perceptions, and new ways of thinking."
We now undestand why . . . Perry chose to translate Arghezi's "Testament" and Psalms. . . . These poems are permeated by an authentic spiritual emotion that crosses cultural boundaries. The introductory glosses are very useful for an American reader.
In the case of Ion Barbu . . . Perry selects "Dioptrie" . . . and "Joc secund." . . . What attracts him is the Romanian's multiplaned perception of reality." Interestingly, Perry sees in this type of vision a specific feature of the Romanian mind: the ambiguity of double meaning, the perception of converging but distinct planes of reality.
Perry's contribution in FROM THESE ROOTS is remarkable and worth the attention of both Romanian and American readers.
-- Adrian Marino
-- James W. Byrd, Professor Emeritus of Literature and Languages, Texas A&M University- Commerce EmeritudsMy favorites The "Ox" and "Translation" are two of my favorites. "Translation -- When I was thrust into this strange and awesome world,/ I gave myself to What is here." We came into this sometimes baffling world with no volition of our own. We inevitably ask ourselves these questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? What am I here for? There is only one answer: "Trust to Caring Arms." In a few short years we must leave this baffling world behind forever. "What is there" we cannot know. Again our only answer is "Trust in Caring Arms." -- Father Paul W. Barrus, Parochial Vicar, St. Elizabet Ann Seton Church, Plano, Texas