{"product_id":"sociu-dan-deep-fakespb","title":"[10\/08\/26] Sociu, Dan: Deep Fakes","description":"\u003cp\u003eWorld Poetry, paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTranslated by Monica Cure\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublication Date: October 8, 2026\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher Marketing: \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe poems of celebrated Romanian \u003cem\u003epoète maudit\u003c\/em\u003e Dan Sociu inhabit the margins of modern life, where personal confession meets social critique and irony deepens emotional truth. Sociu captures the melancholy of post-transition Romania in poems that are both autobiographical—influenced by his own experiences with homelessness, illness, and poverty—and collective. A poet of emotional precision, Sociu chronicles disillusionment, love, death, and survival with minimalist clarity and subdued lyricism. Here, the body dwells in abjection and vulnerability, yet fleeting moments of transcendence emerge through insight, tenderness, and ironic reflection. \u003cem\u003eDeep Fakes\u003c\/em\u003e, the first representative volume of his poetry to be published in English, spans more than a decade of Sociu’s work, from his \u003cem\u003eNaive and Sentimental Poems\u003c\/em\u003e of 2012 to the 2025 volume \u003cem\u003eSweet and Cheap\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese poems by Dan Sociu are smart while remaining warm and loving, and tragic without being maudlin. They are funny and direct and often, in the best possible way, unhinged. Their clear-eyed desperation is familiar to anyone who has read Eastern or Central European poetry, though here it is combined with the antic imagination of the Beats and the plain speech of the New York School. This book was a great pleasure to read, like hearing from a friend who is, like most of us these days, having a hard time, but also making it through. —Matthew Zapruder\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLinking the defiance of punk with the self-shattering of mysticism, Sociu draws us into the landscape of postsocialist Romania without airbrush. Train stations, windows, and asphalt blocks become thresholds for his relentless poetics of existence. Again and again, Sociu insists that poetry doesn’t exist on a separate aesthetic plane from the body. The poem isn’t \u003cem\u003eabove\u003c\/em\u003e the filth of being human; art isn’t an event \u003cem\u003eoutside\u003c\/em\u003e of life. Monica Cure’s brilliant translation renders “a little man with his head in his hands,” carrying the violence and disquiet of neoliberalism into language. He offers no intermediary or solution to anguish or alienation. The poem has no savior outside itself. The raw livingness and splendor of these translations cannot be overstated. —Alina Stefanescu\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDan Sociu, the Charles Bukowski of Romania, gets you right in your gut biome where the AI dies. He’s all flesh tentacles. Feed him if you see him. —Andrei Codrescu\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn impressive book—an excellent translation! —Richard Deming\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45407467241495,"sku":"9781954218505","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0004\/6497\/7956\/files\/1785665309-900.jpg?v=1786826343","url":"https:\/\/open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com\/products\/sociu-dan-deep-fakespb","provider":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","version":"1.0","type":"link"}