The situation of the speaker in Eszter Kósa’s poems is often not fixed, the position takes form in the vulnerability of natural and supernatural powers, in the constant exchanges. The poetic “I” can only manifest in the relationship between the other and otherness, communal and individual actions, as one agent of the network of micro- and macro-level occurrences. Yet, the position of mediator is still one of privilege, and this influence sometimes presents itself in the edifying nature of the speech and in the commands, in Bier, for example, the speaker instructs us through the execution of a ritualistic sequence of actions. Therefore magical thought and the holistic approach of now wiped-out nature religions pervade this poetic world like the foundational ideas of Christianity, and this syncretism lilts beyond comfortable spheres of thought. The world-organising power of humans is repeatedly relativized in the series of position changes and the figurative workings of language.

The unexpected pairings of images and unpredictable associations in Eszter Kósa’s poems testify to sprawling branches of attention. Given her studies in theoretical physics, the author understands the natural scientific connections yet is also concerned with anthropological perspectives that can’t be grasped in formulae. Her ability to capture situations in vivid imagery can be traced to her interest in painting. What’s more, as a multi-instrumentalist she has an incredible musical ear and her poems build to a pulse marked with internal rhymes, to the silences audible between the constructions of short sentences. The silences and forms of absence allow the reader to dwell on the tropes. And create an opportunity for us to observe the foreignness that we once attempted to wipe out through naming, but which resurfaces, again and again.

János Áfra

 

Slumber Moths

 

We, who lived our entire lives under cover of trees,

have never known a branchless sky. In the evenings,

we tell tales of ourselves to the old ones, lest they forget

who we are, and we close the little ones’ mouths. We help

to button up the sleeping bags when everybody

has gone quiet, we form cocoons like larvae. Our head

a pearl, our chest silk, our arm a dangling thread,

we bond to each other, to the earth’s tissue. We break,

the sun ignites, we wash in its light, cleansing our bodies

for the resurrection. Our Father who art the summer sky. Blue

like the tents. In which there wriggle clouds

of sleeping bags. Their occupants awake, pale

and wet, but their sins forgiven. This isn’t yet

our own redemption. We haven’t learned to soar

across canopies, the treetops were chopped from over us.

 

Translated by Owen Good

 

Öbölnyi megafon – Fiatal magyar költők antológiája / A Bay of Megaphones – Anthology of Young Hungarian Poets contains new poems by young Hungarian poets in Hungarian and in English translation, with essay introductions to each new poet by their mentor, an established Hungarian writer.

Mentees (poems): Soma Kazsimér, Gergő Korsós, Eszter Kósa, Edward Kovács, Zita Kubina, Dávid Locker, Mona Aicha Masri, Dániel Nagy, Anna Ősi, Anett Rékai.

Mentors (essays): János Áfra, Kornélia Deres, Ferenc Gál, János Géczi, Ákos Győrffy, István Kemény, Endre Kukorelly, Katalin Szlukovényi, Krisztina Tóth, András Visky.

Translators: Anna Bentley, Owen Good, Edmond Kulcsár, Ágnes Márton, Austin Wagner.

Photos: Balázs Som, Levente Vigh.


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