Hungarian poems in English - only ones that had been translated.

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101

Poem of the month - Ágnes Nemes Nagy: Thirst

How to express this thirst – words fail me – this
Ineffable, tormenting thirst for you?

Would that I might be a carnivorous plant:
You’d be drawn into me, fall into my scent.
Mine would become the warmth of your bronzed skin,
The genteel hand with which you shield yourself,
Which says, each ruinous time we part,
That after all I have been left alone.
Mine too your arm that over-arches mine,
The gleaming raven-plumage of your hair
On which like wings I glide and glide above
A swaying landscape, glowing, infinite.
I’d drink into myself your melting flesh
As thick and sweet as tropic juices, and
The thrilling magic of the smell of you
Like sage and horsetail of primeval Earth.
And your ethereal soul too I would take
(It flickers lantern-like above your head),
All of you greedily, insatiably,
If a carnivorous flower I could be.

But as I’m not? What more? I’ll know no rest.
You love me, I love you. What hopelessness.

102

Today is József Attila’s birthday. It is POETRY DAY in Hungary.

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Attila József was one of the most important and well-known Hungarian poets of the 20th century.

Attila József is the best known of the modern Hungarian poets internationally. His poems have been translated into many languages and he is taught in world literature classes around the globe. Hailed during the communist era of the 1950s as Hungary’s great “proletarian poet”, his life, personality, and works are now being re-evaluated with the current celebrations of the centenary of his birth.

His first volume of poetry was A szépség koldusa (1922); at that time he was 17 and still in school. József studied privately for a year, and then entered the University of Szeged in in 1924 to study Hungarian and French literature. With the help of a maecenas, Lajos Hatvany, he acquired a good education in Austria (1925) and Paris (1926–27), where he studied French literature and discovered the work of François Villon, the famous poet and thief from the 15th-century.

In 1925 József published his second collection of poems, Nem én kiáltok. He was expelled from the university because of a revolutionary poem, Tiszta szívvel. With his manuscripts he traveled to Vienna, where he made a living by selling newspapers and cleaning dormitories, and then to Paris, where he studied at the Sorbonne. During this period he read Hegel and Karl Marx, whose call for revolution appealed to him.

József’s works were praised by such internationally known Hungarian researchers and critics as Béla Balázs and György Lukács. In 1927 several French magazines published József’s poems.

József’s third collection of poems, Nincsen apám se anyám (1929), showed the influence of French surrealism and Hungarian poets Endre Ady, Gyula Juhász and Lajos Kassák. The next year József joined the illegal Communist Party of Hungary (KMP). Döntsd a tokét (1931) was confiscated by the public prosecutor and in 1931 József’s essay Literature and Socialism (Irodalom és szocializmus) led to indictment. However, not long afterward, he left the Communist Party.

Külvárosi éj, a mature collection of poems appeared in 1932. His most famous love poem, Óda, from 1933 took the reader for a journey around and inside the body of the beloved woman. József’s last two books were Medvetánc (1934) and Nagyon fáj (1936). With these works he gained a wide critical attention. Ideologically he had started to advocate humane socialism and alliance with all democratic forces. Only a few are aware of the fact that it was Attila József who first formulated the ars poetica of transrealism in his 1937 poem Welcome to Thomas Mann. József’s political essays were later included in Volume 3. of his Collected Works (1958).

103

The Seventh

If you set out in this world,
better be born seven times.
Once, in a house on fire,
once, in a freezing flood,
once, in a wild madhouse,
once, in a field of ripe wheat,
once, in an empty cloister,
and once among pigs in sty.
Six babes crying, not enough:
you yourself must be the seventh.

When you must fight to survive,
let your enemy see seven.
One, away from work on Sunday,
one, starting his work on Monday,
one, who teaches without payment,
one, who learned to swim by drowning,
one, who is the seed of a forest,
and one, whom wild forefathers protect,
but all their tricks are not enough:
you yourself must be the seventh.

If you want to find a woman,
let seven men go for her.
One, who gives heart for words,
one, who takes care of himself,
one, who claims to be a dreamer,
one, who through her skirt can feel her,
one, who knows the hooks and snaps,
one, who steps upon her scarf:
let them buzz like flies around her.
You yourself must be the seventh.

If you write and can afford it,
let seven men write your poem.
One, who builds a marble village,
one, who was born in his sleep,
one, who charts the sky and knows it,
one, whom words call by his name,
one, who perfected his soul,
one, who dissects living rats.
Two are brave and four are wise;
You yourself must be the seventh.

And if all went as was written,
you will die for seven men.
One, who is rocked and suckled,
one, who grabs a hard young breast,
one, who throws down empty dishes,
one, who helps the poor win;
one, who worked till he goes to pieces,
one, who just stares at the moon.
The world will be your tombstone:
you yourself must be the seventh.

Translated by: Gabor K. Tozser
Attila Jozsef

104

Dániel Berzsenyi: As winter approches

Our withering forest is losing its ornaments.
Yellow leaves rattle among its bare shrubs.
There’s no rosy labyrinth, Zephyr does not swing
Through the balsamic scents.
There’s no more symphony, the turtle-dove does not coo
Between the green bowers and the stream’s violet valley
Is not fragrant under the willow’s leaves,
Its surface is overgrown with rough coppice.
Silent twilight lours on the mountain peak.
Not a cluster smiles on the deep red vine-shots.
Delight’s joyful harmonies have been here once:
Where all is upsetting and dying now.
Oh fluttering time flies by so rapidly,
And all of its creatures hover around his passing wing!
All is just a phenomenon, all things under the sky,
Such like the tiny forget-me-not, fade.
Little by little buds on my wreath perish,
Beautiful spring leaves me behind, yet my lips have never tasted
Its nectar, yet I have just touched
Some of its first blossoms.
My splendid youth leaves me behind and returns nevermore.
Another spring could not revive it!
Any more than Lolli’s brown eyebrows
Could wink my ever-closed eyes!
(Garai, Dora Roberta)

105

As I swept the windfall autumn leaves on the corridor I unobserved murmured a forgetten poem.

“Our withering forest is losing its ornement.
Yellow leaves rattle among its bare shrubs.”

I couldn’t continue and I didn’t have idea who wrote. My husband was there and I said to him this two lines and I asked him : Who wrote this poem. He immediately told: Berzsenyi and he could bring to his mind the whole poem. He alwas astonishes me how is possible that he don’t forget the poems. He complains several times about his forgetfullness , it is true we have both problems to remember the names, but it was characteristic of him always that he never learnt the poems only he read them and he could memorize them unintentionally.

This poem was a compulsory poem in the grammar school. It is from the XVIII century. I think since the finishing exam this poem never occurred to me. With this poem lot of memories came, my classmates, my literature teacher etc.

106

As I have been sweeping the windfall autumn leaves on the corridor while I unobserved were murmuring a forgetten poem.

“Our withering forest is losing its ornement.
Yellow leaves rattle among its bare shrubs.”

I couldn’t continue and I didn’t have idea who wrote. My husband was there and I said to him this two lines and I asked him : Who wrote this poem. He immediately told: Berzsenyi and he could bring to his mind the whole poem. He alwas astonishes me how is possible that he don’t forget the poems. He complains several times about his forgetfullness , it is true we have both problems to remember the names, but it was characteristic of him always that he never learnt the poems only he had been reading them and he could memorize them unintentionally.

This poem was a compulsory poem in the grammar school. It is from the XVIII century. I think since the finishing exam this poem never occurred to me. With this poem lot of memories came, my classmates, my literature teacher etc.

107

Hello Vyroshniko

Longtime ago I learned Russian I could read the Cyrillic script, but to understand it isn’t easy. I was happy that I had to look up one single word: свечи = candles.

So you asked me whether I know where to buy magic candles in Moscow. I don’t know.
Where? I ask only from curiosity because in the near future I won’t go в москве.

привет:

Kati