My journey as a poet by Anca Dumitrescu
It might have been 4 years ago when I discovered Anca’s Instagram account. It was love at first click. She had recently moved into her new house, a dream nest on the most beautiful street in Bucharest (they call it str. Frumoasa for a reason 🙂). I was browsing through her page for daily inspiration on interior design, travel destinations and reading recommendations. At one point, I decided to text her and express my admiration for her universe, and this is how our (online) pen pal friendship started. Traveling, moving abroad, pandemic… all of these kept us at a distance for a long while. But when we first met for a glass of red wine, it felt like we have known each other since forever.
I look up to her for a long list of things. From the suave femininity, the inner power to rebuild herself after life’s most difficult challenges, the unconcealed vulnerability to the passion for life and beauty. But most of all, she will always be the woman who introduced me to poetry. This unknown universe, about which I had no interest whatsoever. It was her first book – (Micro)scop pentru suflet – that opened a window to a new, vast & infinite world of magic. Thanks to her I got into the habit of sitting in a quiet bookstore, looking for classic or contemporary poets, immersing myself into their lyrics.
I am delighted to introduce you to my friend, Anca!
When you need a shift in orientation, a reminder of what you already know but have forgotten, when you want to discover something new, when you feel dull and need a little sparkle, you just go back to poetry. Or at least I do, as poetry has been for me a form of epiphany, a manifestation of the sacred and of the relationships between all things.
How everything started
Wings & roots
Dreams & unconditional love
I was lucky enough to be born into a literary, but most of all, into a loving family. My father, a university professor, encouraged me to read, to speak out and to defend my opinions and thoughts. He also encouraged me to dream, to dream with my eyes wide open. He was always saying dreaming is for free. And there comes a moment in life when you realize that all these dreams you once had, they came true, one way or another. I believe dreaming moves something in this big universe, pushes some wheels that work in your favor. So even today, as a grown up, I still dream and believe the best is yet to come. (Thank you, dad)
My mum taught me LOVE. Unconditionally love. And if my heart is wide open today, if I always give love without expecting anything in return, if I believe in friendship and in taking care of others, it’s because of her. My mother’s love, empathy and care were fundamental for my development and only after becoming an adult did I realize the importance of the seeds she planted in my childhood. In business we say LEAD by the power of example. My mother taught me how to LOVE by the power of example. How to love a child, a parent, a plant, a dog, a sister, or a friend.
With these wings & roots I received from my parents, I had the courage to ask anything from life. And life responded in the best way possible. I was planning to be a doctor, but when finishing high school, I suddenly changed my mind. This wasn’t for me. I was too much of a dreamer, how could I face such a demanding role like being a doctor? So, I went and studied Journalism and writing became my second life.
Why did I mention my parents in my journey as a poet? Why have I started my story with them? Because of the freedom they offered me. They just allowed me to be who I wanted to be and live my life according to this. And freedom is where the artist begins: there are no limitations, and the principles and habits are up to you.
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Becoming a poet
I don’t know if one is born a poet or becomes one along the way. I’ve never thought of writing poems. I just remember I started to read poetry very late in my life (unfortunately), but then it became my daily bread. I’d enjoyed reading poetry, but it wasn’t until I was 25 years old and passing through a complicated period of my life, that I felt a strong calling to write more and to take my own writing seriously. I realized that poetry is exploration, discovery, a permanent search for yourself until you encounter the unknown character that defines being. I started to write poems as I was looking for a way to define myself. To explore the marvel, the intimacy, the sexuality, discovering myself as woman and as an infinitely human being without fears or secrets.
By writing poetry I established my existence. I gave meaning to this existence, I guess. Poetry is an incredible form of solace as well, I got to discover. For both the writer and the reader. If you encounter something in a poem that you feel you’re feeling, it is a freeing, lovely experience.
I believe dreaming moves something in this big universe, pushes some wheels that work in your favor. So even today, as a grown up, I still dream and believe the best is yet to come.
My poetry
When you come to the end of yourself is where all the interesting stuff starts. I had to experience this in order to rebuild myself out of verses and hope. Love, pain, death, courage, hope – all play a part in my poetic journey. Falling in love, falling out of love, being in love from a woman’s perspective, surviving the death of someone you love. I write to examine reality and also to create a space for women’s voices that may not have been heard. Poetry was a form in which I met myself, in which I stripped away what was unnecessary, and, as Rilke says in his Letters to a Young Poet, lived the questions themselves.
“Try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.”
So, after almost 10 years of writing and 2 poetry books published, here I am today. Just like Kristen Costello said: One day the girl with the books became the woman writing them.
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The role of poetry in my life
Poetry gave me new insights, new perspectives, heightened insights that I didn’t find elsewhere, a level of connection, meaning, and pleasure that helped shape my orientation to what it means to be human.
In poetry I find an ability to look at the full complexity of our reality as well as reminders of the good, the beautiful, and what we want to celebrate in life. Whatever one’s spiritual orientation, this close attention to (and in) poetry, I have seen again and again, leads to new understanding, appreciation, and possibilities.
ME
Always in love
With people
Divinity
Creation
Lyrics, poetry, and nothingness.
At night I dream phrases, universes, and pleasures
And stories slide restless down my skin.
Sometimes I feel words that need me
And in the morning, I forget to put them on paper.
All the unwritten books have nested inside of me
All the expectations and desires of this infinity
That I carry in my soul
That carries me into words, into heavens
Into everything that is most womanly within me.
Thank you,