New LifeIt is unusual for a poet who is quite so young (b.1950) and who has published relatively little, to be granted the status of a major poet-in-waiting that translation may seem to bestow. Nevertheless, when a voice is as clear, as capable of speaking so passionately yet intelligently, as thatof Zsuzsa Rakovzky's people do tend to sit up and pay attention. Rakovszky has won all the major literary prizes available: the Graves Prize, the much coveted Jozsef Attila Prize, and the Dery Prize, twice. Some of her poems have appeared in England, the United States, and Germany; her CollectedPoems are in preparation in Hungary. The world of her poems is recognisably the world of her readers: a shifting urban landscape of noisy neighbours, malfunctioning television sets, shadows on landings, snatched meetings, and dying ideologies. Rakovszky's tone is racy, fast, flittering, but precise, and despite the elaborate forms,she is seeentially informal. George Szirtes intention in these wonderful translations, has been to make her sound in English, as she sounds to him in Hungarian. It is partly the classical contral, partly the brillant clarity of her observations, that as attracted readers. While her poems tend to concentrate on private experiences, with the themes of love, deciet, guilt, identity, and personal loss uppermost, there is a current feeling that encompasses amore general and public sense of place and identity. |
Common terms and phrases
anaemic Attila Prize AVART ÉGETTEK baroque beneath blue branch Burning Dead Leaves cake catkins childhood classical control cliché clouds dark dying ideologies earth Emily Dickinson eyes faint feeling flames flesh froth frozen GEORGE SZIRTES glass glow Graves Prize green grey hand happy and unhappy harmonic series House Later Hungarian Hungary INSOMNIA keep calm lamps landscape of noisy lawn light major literary prizes malfunctioning television sets mirror mist needles noisy neighbours Noon numbers opinions or delusions OXFORD POETS ZSUZSA PAINTING BOOK PAPER BOATS pleats poems is recognizably POETS ZSUZSA RAKOVSZKY precisely Prophecies and Deadlines racy Rakovszky sound Rakovszky's recognizably the world remain ring round season shadows on land sheer shifting urban landscape shimmer SILVER AGE sink sizzle skin snatched meetings soul spinning SUMMER SOLSTICE sunbathing survive SZOZOPOL thin things tiny TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION trembling wall wear WILD NIGHT wind yellow