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Kenneth McRobbie

Three Young Hungarian Poets

Summer 1981

Instead of a Flag

By Lajos Pintér, translated by Kenneth McRobbie

Translated from Hungarian.   The one who says dear not only to girls—    but to woman-maned landscape, black-ribbon wreathed houses, homeland farms.      The one who can say my people, my […]

Three Young Hungarian Poets

Summer 1981

Ballad of When the Going’s Rough

By Lajos Pintér, translated by Kenneth McRobbie

Translated from Hungarian.  Approved, the irregular going by regulations, approved, the permitting of disobedience, rubber-stamping each other, then        the real carnival will be us: we’ll drop in, bringing festival to […]

Three Young Hungarian Poets

Summer 1981

Gratitude

By György Petri, translated by Kenneth McRobbie

Translated from Hungarian.   The state holidays’ stillness that drives you crazy is no different from that on Catholic Sundays. In loitering crowds people are even harder to take than […]

Three Young Hungarian Poets

Summer 1981

Onion Speaking

By György Petri, translated by Kenneth McRobbie

Translated from Hungarian.   I’m simply skin all through, even when you slice crosswise, dice me cubewise. Make mincemeat of me! It’s still the nothing you’re cutting which I don’t […]

Three Young Hungarian Poets

Summer 1981

The Rooms

By Dezső Tandori, translated by Kenneth McRobbie

Translated from Hungarian.   Then the furniture was dragged out and it was plain how knotty the floor was, and marks of nails appeared. And you could see that the […]