The Romanian Ana Blandiana (born Otilia-Valeria Coman, 1942) is known internationally as one of her nation's most outstanding poets. Deeply spiritual in her sensibility and patriotic in her loyalties, she wrote verse of traditional beauty and elegance, but also was a prominent dissident and later respected public voice for freedom and democratic change.

To Ana Blandiana, being a poet was "sacred," "a state of grace," "destiny". Thus, "You cannot say of yourself, 'I am a poet', as you cannot say about yourself, within the limits of modesty, 'I am a genius.'" It is, however, also an "obligation," a necessity like living that "rips the writer away from mankind" in order to be its attentive observer and special voice. Her poem about writing, "The Gift," begins, "My gift is tragic, like some ancient punishment ..../ All I touch turns into words...."

Ana Blandiana was born Otilia-Valeria Coman on March 25, 1942, in...