From Booklist
Hungarians may concede that other twentieth-century poets in their language are occasionally, or even consistently, better than Illyes', translator Berlind says in introducing these poems. But Illyes, also a novelist, dramatist, and historian, is first in their hearts, "even as a poet." He was a people's poet--not one of the ideological toadies that Hungary's Communist rulers encouraged, but one who wrote out of love for his fellow Hungarians, especially the peasantry, who vanished in his lifetime. Along with mythology, rural imagery looms large in the often culturally elegiac earlier poems of the book's first section. The second section contains a single poem, "One Sentence on Tyranny," a litany of protest that, written in 1950 but not published until the 1956 uprising, was suppressed within Hungary until 1987. In the last section, offering late work, Illyes ruminates on old age and approaching death, anticipating nothingness and celebrating his country's inspiration to him. Hats off to Berlind for putting this moving, accessible, unsimplistic poet on the map of America's literary consciousness. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
Charon's Ferry
Christian Humanity
Consternation
Crows
Ebb Tide
Elephant Cemetery
Evening Song
Execrable Cold
The Final Journey Of The Leaves
Flood
The Found Caravan Diary
Generals, Victory
Grip
Hearty Welcome
Hope In The Air
How Shall I End?
In A Blacksmith's House On The Puszta
In The Armchair Of Creaking Bones
The Last Home
Man And Mob
My Wife Had Two Walls One Brick Thick
A Nest For Seasons In The Concrete Jungle
Nothingness Is Nearing
Omnipotence
On A Private Golgotha
On The World Of Faith
One Sentence On Tyranny
The Persecuted
A Philosopher's Insights, Sels
Phoenix: 1. Journey Into The Past
Phoenix: 2. Still, Onward
Phoenix: 3. And Onward Still
Phoenix: 4. More Persistently
Photograph
Postcard From The Provinces
Procession In The Fog
The Salvation Of The Damned
Scene From A Drama
Successful Effort
Termites
There Will Be No War
To Those Who Dread War
Transformed Regions
Two Flashes Into The Past: 1. Rue Bonaparte
Two Flashes Into The Past: 2. Taking Notes On The Rostrum
Under The Ice-bright Moon
Unsteadily
White
With A Stranger
World Collapse
World Order
The Year Drops Anchor, Tihany
You Could Have Spotted Me
You Urged Me On
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Christian Humanity
Consternation
Crows
Ebb Tide
Elephant Cemetery
Evening Song
Execrable Cold
The Final Journey Of The Leaves
Flood
The Found Caravan Diary
Generals, Victory
Grip
Hearty Welcome
Hope In The Air
How Shall I End?
In A Blacksmith's House On The Puszta
In The Armchair Of Creaking Bones
The Last Home
Man And Mob
My Wife Had Two Walls One Brick Thick
A Nest For Seasons In The Concrete Jungle
Nothingness Is Nearing
Omnipotence
On A Private Golgotha
On The World Of Faith
One Sentence On Tyranny
The Persecuted
A Philosopher's Insights, Sels
Phoenix: 1. Journey Into The Past
Phoenix: 2. Still, Onward
Phoenix: 3. And Onward Still
Phoenix: 4. More Persistently
Photograph
Postcard From The Provinces
Procession In The Fog
The Salvation Of The Damned
Scene From A Drama
Successful Effort
Termites
There Will Be No War
To Those Who Dread War
Transformed Regions
Two Flashes Into The Past: 1. Rue Bonaparte
Two Flashes Into The Past: 2. Taking Notes On The Rostrum
Under The Ice-bright Moon
Unsteadily
White
With A Stranger
World Collapse
World Order
The Year Drops Anchor, Tihany
You Could Have Spotted Me
You Urged Me On
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
