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March 6, 2008 -
Hungarian Cultural
Center, New York
NEW YORK PRESENTATION ON THE POET ATTILA JÓZSEF
by the translator Gábor G. Gyukics and Michael
Castro
The presentation was part of the reading tour:
January 20 - March 9, 2008
Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Francisco (CA), St. Louis
(MO), Dallas (TX),
New Orleans (LA), Savannah (GA), New York (NY), and Washington (DC)
HUNGARIAN POETRY
2008 Reading tour with the newest English language
poetry book of
Attila Jozsef (1905-1937) titled A Transparent Lion
presented by Gábor G. Gyukics poet, translator
Photos:
Gabriella Gyorffy
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Regarded by many as Hungary's greatest
twentieth-century poet, Atilla József was born in
Budapest in 1905 and died, after apparently throwing himself
under a train in December of 1937.
He wrote about
the personal and the societal, often with startlingly
surreal imagery, or with stark confessional realism.
He was writing in intense emotional tones that swung
between despair and hope, invigorated old poetic forms with
a new freedom, orchestrating his poems with fresh rhythmic
patterns influenced by folk music's rhythms as well as their
metrics. But
he
was also influenced by Dadaist and other modernist ideas
sweeping Europe, finding a voice that would synthesize the
older cultural forms of Hungary with the new experiments of
his time. Ted
Hughes, writing of Attila József, has referred to the "unconsolable
howl of his exposure to what had happened and continued to
happen... counterpointed by a strange elation, a savage sort
of elation or even joy" . |
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Gábor G.
Gyukics
(b. Budapest, 1958) is a Hungarian American poet and literary
translator. His works appeared in several magazines and
anthologies in the United States, Japan and Europe. He has
authored five books of poetry, including Last Smile and
A remete többes száma, Lepkék vitrinben, Half-Naked Muse /
Félmeztelen múzsa, and six books of translations, including
those mentioned above and poetry books by Paul Auster and Ira
Cohen. He established the only existing Open Mike reading series
in Hungary in 1999. Organized and hosted over 100 Open readings
with well known, prize winner and also with young and upcoming
poets. His CDs include Sand Snail and The Afterlife of a
Book. He also served as an editor for English to Hungarian and
Hungarian to English dictionaries.
He received
the Füst Milán translator's prize from the Hungarian Academy of
Science and the Arts Link Grant in 1999 and a Writer's fellowship
from the Hungarian National Cultural Fund in 2007. |
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Michael Castro
(b. New York City, 1945) is a poet and founding editor of River
Styx, a thirty year old magazine and arts organization.
Castro, whose work appears in many magazines and anthologies, is
the author of eight collections of poetry including: The
Kokopilau Cycle,Ghost Hiways & Other Homes, The Man Who Looked
Into Coltrane’s Horn, and Human Rites (Neshui Publishing,
2002), and Interpreting the Indian: 20th Century Poets and the
Native American, a historical study of Native American
influences on modern poets. Forthcoming in 2008 are a book of
poetry, The Guide (Shulamis Press), and two poetry-music
CDs: Deep Mirror, with Joe Catalano; and Kokopilau,
with J.D. Parran. He lives in St. Louis, where he hosts the radio
program, Poetry Beat, and teaches at Lindenwood University |
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Gábor G.
Gyukics
and
Michael Castro
co-translated and co-edited Swimming in the Ground:
Contemporary Hungarian Poetry (Nehsui Publishing, 2001), a
collection of works by forty Hungarian poets, Gypsy Drill (Neshui
European edition, 2005), works by the distinguished Gypsy poet,
Attila Balogh, and A Transparent Lion: Selected Poems of Attila
Jozsef (Green Integer, 2006) |
Adelia Parker-Castro, Michael Castro, Gábor G. Gyukics,
and legendary New York downtown poet Steve Dalachinsky
Timea Szabo-Zsedely, Japheth Wood, Sylvia D. Nagy, Gábor G. Gyukics,
Michael Castro, Adelia Parker-Castro, Thomas Lendvai, Steve Dalachinsky,
Jakab Orsós,
Anna Pásztor, Eszter Rózsa, Gábor Kovács,
Emese El Bissatiné Pásztor,
Alexis Poledouris, and
Krisztina Danka
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