Let"s kill them one more time!

Over the past few days, poetry books have seen record sales.

The poems of the recently deceased poet Adrian Păunescu were the first to fly off the shelf, but the emotion around his death helped boost the sales of some of the classics.

Death sells like hotcakes.

Romania"s culture could have a major opportunity, on one condition: if we succeeded in reviving its former great writers at dawn, and then allowed them to die once more at dusk, for us.

The TV stations and the far too popular tabloids would do the rest. It would also be a huge opportunity for publishing houses to boost their sales, and for the public to once again find its lost values.

Having Mihai Eminescu (Romania"s greatest poet) become a victim of the system (for instance, dying because of the collapsing healthcare system) would cause the ratings of news channels to spike.

Of course, none of the ministers would hand in their resignations, but "The Morningstar" and "Ode (antic metrical foot)" would sell a few hundred thousand items.

The discussion around his affairs would cause the circulation of the papers to rocket.

The death of Nicolae Labiş (ed. note: Romanian poet who died in mysterious circumstances - ostensibly lost his balance, got caught the grille between the wagons of a streetcar, his head hit the pavement, and he was dragged a short distance), would create and endless stream of talk shows on OTV, where all the scheming and plotting that the world is capable of would be debated arduously.

Imagine a title blinking at the top of the screen: "Political assassination, crime of passion or suicide?", would put "The Death of the Deer" (poem by Nicolae Labiş) on many shelves.

Marin Preda and his mysterious death (ed. note: Romanian novelist who died under suspicious circumstances, apparently suffocated with a pillow at the Writers" Mansion of Mogoşoaia Palace), would give a second chance to the domestic novelists, which are unfairly ignored.

The writers who had the bad luck to reach their golden years, living in poverty inside their homes, will be content to live of the crumbs from the table of their younger, more successful peers.

Numbers say that in Romania only 8% of adults constantly buy books and more than 90% watch TV. If all of the above were to happen, perhaps those figures would look differently.

It"s easy to blame people for falling over themselves to buy the books of a recently deceased writer, hyped up by a media serving its own interests.

It is easily forgotten that over the past 20 years poetry books had tiny print runs to say the least.

How can people be expected to appreciate something they may not even know exists? Those to blame for this state of things should be sought elsewhere, not among the reading public that sometimes feels the need to read poems and sing love songs.