Overview

These translations by Piette and Lehóczky form a five-year long project with an ambition to translate a significant selection of the poems of the modernist, socialist, working-class Hungarian poet, Attila József (1905-1937), one of the most celebrated and loved poets of the 20th century in Hungary. He lived a poverty-stricken, passionate and unstable life as a wanderer, a bohemian, a poet, a thinker, a non-conformist, a hobo and a lover until his untimely death by suicide, struck by a train, in Balatonszárszó on Lake Balaton, aged only 32. His poetry is surrealist, existentialist, Villonesque, tough-minded, quasi anarchist, deeply drenched in Hungarian folklore and the folk song, passionate, lyrical, elegiac, marked by his solitary wandering, his keen observation of the lives of the people, by his psychoanalytically inflected gaze into the unconscious, into the mind and body of lovers, his philosophical focus on dialectic and social injustice. The lyrics, free verse and formal, in an astonishing number of experimental forms, range from the metaphysical to the memoir, have filiations to French medieval, post-symbolist and surrealist poetry, fuse Nietzsche, Marx, Hegel and Freud in daring raids on the inarticulate, sing with haunting vernacular and ancient beauty and rise to extraordinary heights and flights of the imagination, yet are always grounded in the real, in the concrete particulars of the metropolis, the dark streets of the underclasses of this world. This bilingual volume presents a chronological selection of Attila József's poetry, featuring both English translations and the original Hungarian texts from Béla Stoll's 2005 edition. It provides crucial context for readers. With introductions by George Szirtes, György Tverdota, and Aranka Kemény, the collection aims to recreate 'The Song of the Cosmos', an unpublished collection József envisioned in the early 1920s. What does the song of the cosmos refer to? Who sings to whom and about what? 'Cosmos' here isn't the physical universe but rather the soul expanded to cosmic proportions, a 'universe imbued with a political subject'. In the sonnet cycle, József thus wanted to sing the song of the cosmic soul, as a lyrical outpouring of the cosmos and as a song of the human species, channelling cosmic forces and singing as global collective, as global consciousness, a planetary cosmos speaking about and for itself. The volume incorporates a faithful and playful reconstruction of the original graphic design, conceived by József's artist friend György Békeffi in the 1920s. Miklós Ferencz executed the reconstruction of the original book design specifically for this edition. The final section of the book includes ekphrastic 'guest poems' by George Szirtes, István Vörös, Adam Piette and Ágnes Lehóczky, each creating an imaginary account exploring different possibilities and scenarios of what ifs each playing on one of József's final poem 'There, I've found my home at last...'. What if Attila József had not met his own tragic end in December 1937, Balatonszárszó? I generate my brand of love feet they stand on strange planets from all the gods I take my leave my heart is steadfast & alive here I in my light white shirt (from 'light white shirt', 1937)

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Attila József (1905-1937) is one of the most renowned Hungarian poets of the 20th century who gained recognition for his literary achievement only after his tragic death in 1937. Attila József, a Hungarian poet of working-class origin, endured a tragic childhood marked by the early loss of both parents. Born to an unskilled worker and a washerwoman, he was orphaned at a young age. Despite these hardships, József pursued higher education, studying Hungarian and French literature at the University of Szeged. However, his academic career was abruptly cut short in 1925 after a disagreement with a conservative professor over his poem 'With a Pure Heart' ('Tiszta szívvel'). This led him to continue his studies in Vienna and Paris. In the 1920s, he sympathized with anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist ideals. From 1930 to 1933, József actively participated in the illegal Communist Party. However, he was expelled due to his growing disillusionment with the Party's Moscow-inspired ideology and his burgeoning interest in Freudian psychoanalysis. Despite his undeniable talent, József remained largely unrecognized during his lifetime. Even his final poetic period, marked by his work as managing editor of the independent leftist review Szép Szó, failed to bring him widespread acclaim. His final collection, Nagyon fáj ('How It Hurts'), published in 1936, met with poor sales.

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