Gellu Naum had immeasurable respect for the art of boulevard strolling. As an early institutionalizer of Romanian surrealism, Gellu noticed that the large cracks in the sidewalks made women cringe. This observation might have turned him into a forerunner of magical realism were it not for ...
Communism made the publication of poetry difficult because the ink was always invisible for those in the avant-garde. But Gellu had his Zenobia-- if he didn't have her, he would have invented her, and, in fact, having her made her invention somewhat less daunting. So Gellu did (and had) both. In 1968, a miraculous intervention made the ink black so Romanians could read again and writers could publish. Unfortunately, those writers who required colored ink for their publications would have to wait until 1990, when the Turks would open bazaars on the streets of Bucharest.
Gellu was a man, but he could have been more. He could have been a long, winding shopping list curled around a baba's fist, each line another symptom of Gellu's existence. If a young lady were to discover such a list crumpled up near a Happy Meal bag, she would be in possession of Gellu's list-fulness, the sum of his parts, the sum-thing like this:
- Love as a literary game
- The dialectics of the imaginary
- A critique of misery
- Comana
- A blue shore
- A children's book
- An old military uniform without epaulettes
- Vacationing vultures
- The road of foreshadowings
- Thick dark hair
- The Eastern Front
- The secret being
- Eloge de malhombra
- Athanor
- A framed portrait of Victor Brauner
- An empty obit
- Nobody for a long time
- A pulse just as blind and obscure
