Playful Rhymes

I promised Ove Berglund playful rhymes to lure him into translating Rafi´s first volume and indeed, the volume had both: rhymes and play. I avoided telling him about stanzas full of ballad-like density; this made me somewhat worried during the translation…
Éva Gergely and I (the two rough translators) had to point out to him the various folkloric influences and those of Attila József ‘s poems. We did this because it seemed to me that basically these had the dominant effect on Rafi´s poetry. In high school he read the classics with great enthusiasm. Several sources mention that literature, Hungarian literature was a great reading experience for him.

Rafi and the school librarian seemed to like each other. She could most likely tell us what books Rafi read, in addition to the very good ten- and eleven-grade textbooks. The point is, that Attila József had a big impact on him, mainly in the elegant shift between concrete and abstract within a stanza, within a verse („My tears are soaking my black life. I’m leaving. Sadness is leaning on my mind.” Slow rambling). Endre Ady’s influence also shows: abstract words, concepts are emphasized and capitalized („Perhaps the World will forgive my Sin“ Curriculum Vitae). The depths of the Gypsy reality are not far from the bitterness of the folk songs („I wish there weren’t, I wish there weren’t: / I wish there weren’t autumn wind.” Gypsy Autumn). And what I´m not sure of, I can only suspect that the Gypsy folk poetry also could have helped him in expressing his emotions. But, as I said, that´s just my assumption, I don´t speak the Gypsy language and I’m nether a literary critic nor a literary historian.

Ove was happy to hear our comments. And the translation did not cause any problems, let me thank you Mr. Berglund for this. No wonder that this Swedish physician, who speaks no Hungarian but has an intimate familiarity with the Hungarian literature – he had translated by then poems by Attila József, Sándor Kányádi and Mihály Babits – had no problems with neither understanding nor transplanting Rafi’s work. That’s why the Swedish translation is so good. And his bonus: he had enjoyment of the playful rhymes… (“Black minutes keep gathering. / Black wrinkles keep gathering//… Black children keep gathering.” Gipsy State Of Affairs

Translation: Zsuzsanna Tódor, Proofreading: Gabriel Farkas
Mail to Tamás Gergely: gergely90@hotmail.com