Wheel With a Single Spoke

Winner of Three Percent’s Best Translated Book Award 2013

For those—sadly most of us—unacquainted with this brilliant post-World War II Romanian poet’s prolific accomplishment, this selection should prove a revelation. During a historical period of all-too-familiar repression and enforced orthodoxy, his work surged off the page with that liberty only the most gifted and courageous artists possess, giving the lie to the lies around him, and the slant truths of poetry to his listeners. —Michael Palmer

Nichita St?nescu blasted open the prison gates of Socialist realism in Romanian poetry, and all of us rushed out, reveling in the freedom he gave us. His poems display an astounding brilliance that time has not tarnished. These splendid translations by Sean Cotter will introduce English speakers to a universal genius. —Andrei Codrescu

At the time I started writing, about thirty years ago, I was obsessed with Romanian poetry. Today, I still think that St?nescu is one of the most important poets of the 20th century. —Semezdin Mehmedinovic The greatest contemporary Romanian poet. —Tomaž Šalamun

St?nescu has a gift for creating active, startling images. . . In Wheel With a Single Spoke … St?nescu is at his best; he examines the nature of time, space and geometry, and in the friction between science and lyric impulse, produces some of his most beautiful lines. We’re lucky that, nearly thirty years after his death, his voice still comes through, clearer than ever. —Words Without Borders

For a poet who is thought of as one of the defining Romanian voices of the mid-20th century, St?nescu is poorly represented in English … Archipelago’s fuller treatment is long overdue. St?nescu is one of the poets who broke through the socialist-realism sound barrier and propelled Romanian poetry into new spheres. He has been revered for decades in Romania as a great voice and it is our considerable good fortune that Cotter has helped us to see why. —The Arts Fuse