After graduating from the Moise Nicoară High School in Arad, he studied medicine in Sibiu, where the University of Cluj had moved in the wake of the Hungarian occupation of Northern Transylvania.

[4] After moving to Bucharest in 1955, he was arrested in 1957 by the Securitate for "failure to report" and turn over a fellow editor, who had invited his colleagues to participate in an anti-communist protest.

Some of his most famous works include: Omul cu compasul, Seminția lui Laokoon, Anotimpul discret, Interiorul unui poem, and Lamentații.

Elected in 1992 to the Senate of Romania as a member of the Civic Alliance Party [ro], he served until 1996.

That night, his wife Irinel Liciu [ro], a former first ballerina whom he had married in 1958, committed suicide; she was 74.