Ex Igni Natus – Alex Andronic

When I cry, I dissolve.

When I write, I rebuild myself.

I rebuild my flesh from paper,

I glue my soul with ink

until all that hurts becomes poetry.

(a stanza from the poem “Why do I write when I feel like crying?”)

 

Naturalness is the word to which I would summarize Alex Andronic's entire volume of poems. With one addition, that naturalness flows in two ways. You get the sense that the poet sat down, wrote the poems, and then they found their way to the reader. Far be it from me to think that they were written in haste, but the feelings, the images, the sensations show themselves to the reader with an extraordinary naturalness. And on the other hand, the reader accesses them marvelously simply. When things seem simple, there's a lot of complexity behind it, at least that much I know.

 

I found happiness

in the middle of an ordinary day,

in a corner of the beach

where clams swam

without fear of drowning.

 

I enjoyed reading Alex Andronic's novels (“Confused”, “Return to Myself” and “Remain to Me” ), and it was a delight to discover him now also as a poet. “The Puppeteer”, “The Coin of Love”, “The Shadow Show”, “Lemon Peel”, “What Would Time Say?” are just a few of my favorites.

It is natural to feel, although lately it seems to me that we are under pressure to hide ourselves, not to show that we feel, that we live, that we vibrate. I have enjoyed reading the volume “Ex Igni Natus” and savoring the uplifting thing that poetry does by making us remember that we are humans and that we feel.

And at the end, other stanzas, because you don't have to trust in the words I write, but in the lyrics:

 

A whispered voice slowly puts me down:

Success is not yours,

it's all a farce.

Every victory smells of deceit,

like a wax mask melting in the sun,

a cheap trick only I know.

 

My empty gaze,

in the mirror of doubt,

sees a foreign face, always someone else.

My successes are always happenstance,

accidents on wrong paths,

while the real me lies hidden behind the scenes.

(stanzas from the poem “The Shadow Show”)