When I was beginning to write and trying to publish (about 20 years ago), and because I had to live in a double closed world (the sanatorium, where I was working as a nurse, and the communist Romania of that time), I thought to invent a different world than mine in my writing, one with well-known places such as Rome or Rio de Janeiro but that I had never visited before. I simply begun to pretend I was free to travel like a citizen from West and wrote consequently. In fact, I was listening one day to an Italian radio channel when I suddenly understood that I should write as another person. I thought that that “person” would be able to speak from another point of view, different from my own in the very reality of that time. Since then I have written several poems from that "different" perspective and three manifestos of what I called “chimerism”. Inspired by Pessoa’s experience, the “chimerism” is the theoretical expression of my poems and maybe one of the globalization tendencies of nowadays. There is in my poems a character who travels all around the world and behaves like an universal citizen. His name is Himerus Alter, and he borrowed my voice pretending in some poems that he really wrote everything I had written. He sometimes “visits” the sanatorium in which I lived & worked and reflects upon disease and his proper condition as a human being. Poetry is simply part of my identity. My wife and my children, my friends and other people know me like that: a poet. I would not dramatize, though, by saying that I could not live without writing. That would not be true first, and then I think life itself has enough poetry and beauty that we should not be in need of making a choice. What is true is that poetry has helped me to live life in a way I like. It has become my life style. I mean it has increasingly influenced me for the last two decades (since I wrote the first poem, when I was just trying to impress girls, friends and teachers), in my thought, in what I do, in my general way to see things, in how I am. I find this as not so bad, because I know how prosaic life can be when there is no sparkle of sensitivity and no grain of poetry in the day to day life. Poetry helps me in my life in a very concrete way: it simply does not allow me being indifferent. Poetry is rather a matter of life than art.

Born in 1965, I have published in my country six books of poetry, a collection of short stories, a novel, several articles, reviews and essays and launched the so-called “Poetical Manifesto of Chimerism” (which theorizes on a trans-national perspective). I also write in English, and a part of my work have appeared abroad (some in translation) for the last years in magazines & e-zines including “Serta” (Spain), “Poetic Diversity” (USA), “The Blue House” (USA), “Subtle Tea” (USA), "Flutter Poetry Journal" (USA), "Scorched Earth Publishing" (USA, “Stellar Showcase Journal” (Canada), “Southern Ocean Review” (New Zeeland), “Magma Poetry” (UK), “The Orange Room Review” (USA) “Art With Words" (USA), “Dichtungsring” (Germany) “Buchkultur” (Austria) and in the anthologies “Chorus of Voices” (TJMF Publishing, USA), “L.A. Melange” (Sybaritic Press, USA), “Transatlantic Crossings. The Constant language of Poetry“ (TJMF Publishing, USA), “Um Etwas Zeit Zu Retten” (Germany), “Abgenutzter Engel – Zehn rumänische Dichter” (Germany). I have been awarded a few scholarships/”writers-in-residence” grants: in Germany (2002: Heinrich Böll-House Langenbroich; 2003: Künstlerdorf Schöppingen), Austria (2006: Kulturkontakt Austria), Scotland (2006: Cove Park) and Switzerland (2006: Künstlerwohnung Chretzeturm). Featured at the International Poetry Festival in Bredevoort (Netherlands, 2003). Having graduated a sanitary high-school and a post secondary medical school, I have successively worked as a nurse in different hospitals, an experience which has enriched my literary vision. I live with my wife Iuliana and our two children Ioana and Stefan in Piatra Neamt (Romania) and currently work in the domain of education for health while completing studies in psychology.

Poetry Circle
It is a special and professional community of poets and lovers of poetry which has warmly accepted me as a member and recently invited me to join its editors' board.

TJMF Publishing
A publishing house whose founders and collaborators are very passionate of poetry and literature. I have the honor to be among its published authors with the volume “Transatlantic Crossings. The Constant Language of Poetry,” co-authored also by D.M. Timney and Michael Cotner.

Vasile Baghiu | poetry is rather a matter of life than art
A couple of days ago (we are on June 12, 2007) I began working on this personal webpage. It containes poems in English, German translations, photos and other stuff.