János Áfra / Two Poems

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Because only thus is it / worth living, no? Leaving a trace of our self / behind, clinging between the pages of others. – Two poems by János Áfra in translation by Peter Sherwood and Owen Good.

János Áfra: Two Poems

Clichés of Closeness

 

It's on my mind all the time, I plan

to put her on a shelf, but I'm still just

trying out how it might look best, she too

must be someone like this, arranging

people on a shelf, writing on little slips

how and what she can do with whom and

for how long: easier to find your way like this

and yes, also to lose it, taking no risks,

striving for a target and an easy conscience,

the only troubling thing is being unable

to put oneself on any single circumscribed

surface, being torn to sheets and being thus

able to exceed oneself, in distinctive parts,

at points far from each other, placed between

a book here, a book there, barely protruding,

since it is safer to cling on under

fairly large pages, or between covers,

as if not alone, being just an organic fragment

of all these. Because only thus is it

worth living, no? Leaving a trace of our self

behind, clinging between the pages of others.

 

 

Translated by Peter Sherwood

 

 

Earth, Water, Air

 

The forest first prepares its trees,

the soil is loosened up by oaks,

the earth traces its trodden routes,

whose courses meet at junctions,

and in a third direction

 

buoyant footfall accumulates,

a shower hastens the heartbeat,

ushers forward the beating feet,

washes away the tracks, the scents,

and the forest way regains its face.

 

A door handle fit to be handled,

our skin readies for excitement,

tiles welcome the sockless soles,

as the sofa does cast-off clothes

and the wet scent of movement,

 

the union lasts for sixty minutes,

but when I open in the windows,

the curtains carry on, moving with

the limbs of nearby trees, as if

supposing still we were free.

 

 

Translated by Owen Good

 

 

János Áfra was born in Hajdúböszörmény in 1987. He is a poet, art critic and editor of Alföld literary magazine. He studied visual arts, literature and philosophy at the University of Debrecen, where he is an instructor at present. He co-created the bilingual art-poetry book Productive Misreadings with Zsuzsanna Szegedi-Varga. He has published three books of poetry: Glaukóma (Glaucoma) in 2012; Két akarat (Two Wills) in 2015; Rítus (Ritual) in 2017. Áfra was awarded two Hungarian debut prizes: Makói Medáliák (Mako's Medal, 2013), Gérecz Attila-díj (Attila Gérecz Prize, 2014), and got other important prizes and scholarships: Móricz Zsigmond Irodalmi Ösztöndíj (Zsigmond Móricz Literary Scholarship, 2013), Sziveri János-díj (János Sziveri Prize, 2014), Horváth Péter Irodalmi Ösztöndíj (Péter Horváth Literary Scholarship, 2016) among others.

Owen Good, from Northern Ireland, is a translator of Hungarian poetry and prose. His debut book translation, Krisztina Tóth’s short story cycle Pixel (Seagull Books, 2019), was shortlisted the EBRD Literary Prize and the TA First Translation Prize. His work has appeared in Asymptote, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Moth, and Ploughshares among others. He is co-editor of Hungarian Literature Online.

Peter Sherwood taught at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (now part of University College London) until 2007. From 2008 until his retirement in 2014 he was Distinguished Professor of Hungarian Language and Culture in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received the Pro Cultura Hungarica prize of the Hungarian Republic in 2001, the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic in 2007, the János Lotz Medal of the International Association for Hungarian Studies in 2011, the László Országh Prize of the Hungarian Society for the Study of English in 2016, and the Árpád Tóth Prize for translation in 2020. His translations from Hungarian include Miklós Vámos's The Book of Fathers, Noémi Szécsi's The Finno-Ugrian Vampire, and collections of essays by Antal Szerb and Béla Hamvas. He co-translated Zsuzsa Selyem's It's Raining in Moscow (Contra Mundum Press, 2020).

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