Mihaela Moscaliuc was born and raised in Romania. She is the author of the poetry collections Immigrant Model (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) and Father Dirt (Alice James Books, 2010), translator of Carmelia Leonte’s The Hiss of the Viper (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2015) and Liliana Ursu’s Clay and Star (Etruscan Press, 2019), and editor of Insane Devotion: On the Writing of Gerald Stern (Trinity University Press, 2016). Her scholarship explores issues of representation, appropriation, cultural identity, exophony, and empathy. She has published essays on the works of Agha Shahid Ali, Kimiko Hahn, Shara McCallum, Colum McCann, C.K. Williams, Gerald Stern, and in the field of Romani Studies. The recipient of two Glenna Luschei Awards (in poetry and prose, respectively) from Prairie Schooner, residency fellowships from Chateau de Lavigny (Switzerland), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the MacDowell Colony, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and a Fulbright fellowship to Romania, Moscaliuc is associate professor of English at Monmouth University (New Jersey).
Kristina Marie Darling: Your skillfully rendered and thought-provoking translation project, Clay and Star, will be launched soon from Etruscan Press. What would you like readers to know before they delve into the work itself?
Mihaela Moscaliuc: I’m not sure they need to be prepared in any other way than by allowing themselves some undistracted time so they can make the most of that timelessness and slow-release quality that operates so magically in Ursu’s work. The collection comprises selections from a number of volumes. The choices I made were driven by the desire to reflect the layered cohesiveness of her voice, the way it carries its song across time and space, horizontally and vertically, earth to celestial yonder.
KMD: As a translator, what drew you to Liliana Ursu’s work?
MM: When I came to the United States from Romania in 1996, I left everything behind, so homesickness set into motion as soon as I realized I wouldn’t be going back. Ursu’s poems returned me to a homeland not yet eroded by history or memory, and to a heartbeat that I recognized as ancestral and intimate. With each poem I entered a circle of light that momentarily grounded and transported me. In the spaces they opened I could hear my great-grandmother singing in the bathtub as my mother rinsed her cascading hair with pots of stove-heated water Sundays before church, and could also hear the vespers of the Agapia and Varatec monasteries to which I’d retreat summers in my late teens. Romania has changed substantially since I left, 23 years ago, and much contemporary poetry works toward capturing the discords, woes, and lures of current times. That’s not what I read Ursu’s poetry for, though. I sought—and seek it– for its thrust toward transcendence, for the spiritual re-rooting it affords.
KMD: Many readers misunderstand translation as a literal transfer of meaning from one language to the next. With that in mind, we as readers often underestimate the ingenuity of translators as problem solvers, collaborators, and artists themselves. To what extent is translation a creative endeavor for you?
MM: The poets and poems I translate travel well into the English language and, I suspect, into any language. This is not accidental. I shy away from work that fascinates me if I sense that it would not translate well without too many compromises and doubts. You could say I’m playing it safe, and that might be part of it, but perhaps more than that I like to work within my strengths as a translator. I select work that I both admire and feel I can do justice to. Carmelia Leonte and Liliana Ursu are two poets who fall into this category. The creativity comes into play as I attend to the distinguishing voice and craft of my poet-companion. I know succinctness, precision, and music are integral, for instance, to Leonte’s and Ursu’s craft, so the alterations I make (to diction, line breaks, or punctuation, for instance) are often with an eye toward servicing these aspects of the original work. When I started translating I couldn’t have done it without the mentorship of my partner (poet Michael Waters), and his exquisite ear remains the final testing ground.
KMD: Clay and Star will be published by the well-respected Etruscan Press. In addition to their outstanding reputation, what appealed to you about Etruscan Press as a home for this particular project?
MM: I loved Etruscan’s range of aesthetics and voices, and was already a fan of many of their authors, including William Heyen, H.L. Hix, Nin Andrews, Tim Seibles, Myrna Stone, Michael Blumenthal, and Bruce Bond. In the process of working with them I discovered I had become part of an incredible family, with everyone from the executive director to the editors, designers, and interns attending to production details and marketing with meticulous care and enthusiasm. They do so much more than publish books, including making literature matter though dialogue and community outreach, and that’s something I care deeply about.
KMD: In addition to your achievements as a translator, you are also an accomplished poet. What does literary translation open up within your practice as a working writer?
MM: Although I write my poetry directly in English, I think of this process as a translation of sorts. I’m an exophone poet who writes out of the need to make sense of life in a language that has replaced the mother tongue but that withholds intimacy. When I translate from the Romanian I become sharply aware of that. ln more general terms, I have no doubt that the practice of translating poetry –and also of reading work in translation, especially through multiple translations—has helped shape me into whoever I am as a poet.
KMD: What’s next? What events, workshops, readings, and projects can we all look forward to?
MM: I am finishing a poetry manuscript titled Cemetery Ink and co-editing a collection of poems on immigration experiences. Over the last few weeks, Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and New York State Poet Laureate Alicia Ostriker and I have been working on soliciting and gathering translations of Emma Lazarus’ famous sonnet “The New Colossus” in as many languages as possible. We hope to secure a host/platform for this project and disseminate it as widely as possible. I don’t think I need to mention why this is a necessary and timely project.