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Perched on Nothing's Branch
Forty poems and one essay by the left-wing schizophrenic Hungarian poet who committed suicide by throwing himself under a train.
"I have long thought of Attila Jozsef as one of the great poets of the century—a tragic realist whose work beautifully redeemed the unbearable conditions of the life to which history condemned him. These new translations will be welcomed."—Donald Justice
"I have long thought of Attila Jozsef as one of the great poets of the century—a tragic realist whose work beautifully redeemed the unbearable conditions of the life to which history condemned him. These new translations will be welcomed."—Donald Justice
88 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1999
1 person is currently reading
216 people want to read
About the author
Attila József
102 books67 followersThe son of Áron József - a soap factory worker of Székely and Romanian origin from Banat - and a Hungarian peasant girl with Cuman ancestry - Borbála Pőcze - was born in Ferencváros, a poor district of Budapest. He had two elder sisters: Eta and Jolán. When Attila József was three he was sent to live with foster parents after his father abandoned the family and his mother became ill. Because the name Attila was not well known at the time, his foster parents called him Pista.
His mother died in 1919, aged only 43. After this, he was looked after by Ödön Makai, his brother-in-law. Later he applied to the Franz Joseph University – his dream was to become a secondary school teacher – but he was soon turned out when a man named Antal Horger determined he was unfit for teaching because of a provocative poem he had written (With All My Heart).
After this he tried to support himself with the little money he earned by publishing his poems. He started showing signs of schizophrenia, and was treated by psychiatrists (now he probably would be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder). He never married and only had a small number of affairs, but frequently fell in love with the women who were treating him.
He died on 3 December 1937 at Balatonszárszó. Crawling through the railway tracks, he was crushed by a starting train. The most widely accepted view is that he committed suicide, but some experts say that his death was by accident.
His mother died in 1919, aged only 43. After this, he was looked after by Ödön Makai, his brother-in-law. Later he applied to the Franz Joseph University – his dream was to become a secondary school teacher – but he was soon turned out when a man named Antal Horger determined he was unfit for teaching because of a provocative poem he had written (With All My Heart).
After this he tried to support himself with the little money he earned by publishing his poems. He started showing signs of schizophrenia, and was treated by psychiatrists (now he probably would be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder). He never married and only had a small number of affairs, but frequently fell in love with the women who were treating him.
He died on 3 December 1937 at Balatonszárszó. Crawling through the railway tracks, he was crushed by a starting train. The most widely accepted view is that he committed suicide, but some experts say that his death was by accident.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 24, 2019
Even if you hate this book with all your heart you have to appreciate that one poem titled "I Am Not the One Shouting" written in all caps.
December 13, 2024
DISCLAIMER:
DISCLAIMER: I am not a speaker of the original language in which these verses were composed (i.e., Hungarian).
DISCLAIMER: This edition, acquired online via legal means, consists of (if my count can be trusted) forty lyric poems translated into English by a man named Peter Hargitai.
DISCLAIMER: Attila József, like plenty other of the poetically inclined, took his own life at the age of thirty-two. His choice of murder weapon was a locomotive.
DISCLAIMER: József was a communist (which is, of course, totally fine). Ironically, the first piece of writing in this volume—other than the introduction, that is—is a two-page curriculum vitae (also known as a "CV") in which the author describes his work experience, his hard and soft skills, and—unsurprisingly—his earnest interest in obtaining long-term employment; despite its obvious prosidy, starting a poetry collection in this way, especially one whose poems are, in the main, so brooding and cryptic, is deeply evocative.
DISCLAIMER: The author (i.e., Attila József—not Peter Hargitai, who is, as I said, the translator) had a long history of mental illness, namely depression and schizophrenia. He never married (which is, also, totally fine of course) and, at the time of his death, was living with his sister: I am momentarily reminded of Hölderlin (another sacrifice to our verse-enamored homeboy Apollo). As might be expected—though perhaps it would have been better for me to have first experienced these poems without my having become privy to this information (you can imagine why)—the poems contained herein are, in a word, dark. The poet's main tool of communication is a preponderance of images—stacked on top of one another, oftentimes without narrative or explanation (think late Sylvia Plath). The poet's main tool of communication is a locomotive.
DISCLAIMER: Before this, never had I read a collection of poetry, though perhaps the fault is on me for not being well-read enough, that I would describe as Lynchian. "Kafkaesque" is a good word too. These poems, while a bit dismal in tone, are alive with the incessant clanking of machinery and the hustle-bustle of workers (especially, for some reason, craftsman), customers, and people frantically coming and going. I read these quickly—this (i.e., reading poetry too fast) is a thing I'm continuously failing to stop doing, though not for a lack of trying (I promise)—but, without being able to provide specific examples, I was struck throughout, again and again, by the kind of dread typical of a groaning, smoke-billowing machine. This is not the lifeless, immotive death of a nuclear wasteland; it's something more akin to the highly embellished nightmare of late-stage capitalism. It's a wholly unnatural human-borne presence—even though a rather famous-seeming poem entitled "I Am Not the One Shouting" (also given to a whole collection published in the author's lifetime) suggests that József had dark and brooding things to say about the natural world as well—that moves not necessarily of its own volition but moves unstoppingly nonetheless. For most of us, the terrible thing about life is the assured promise of its eventual cessation. However, for József, as I can imagine some graduate student typing away in the coldest corner of some Soviet library or a long-abandoned place of higher learning, "it is rather that something stupid and greedy might endlessly self-propogate because there's nothing left to oppose it."
DISCLAIMER: The trouble with translated, posthumously published poetry collections is that— for starters—they lack thematic continuity. In his home country of Hungary, József, though often struggling financially and, as aforementioned, psychically as well, nevertheless experienced some degree of literary success throughout his needlessly short life. Whenever the good-intentioned artist/translator decides to bring the work of a previously unrevealed poet/writer to the English-speaking world, the project's ambition seems to overshadow any inclination toward practicality—or perhaps we should, instead, say "authenticity." What I want is not The Collected Truncated Attila József. I don't want forty-odd poems taken from various points in the author's career. I want—however sincerely, perhaps wrongly—the work of the poet as the poet intended it to be read; oftentimes, this means not hundreds of hodgepodge verses gathered together over the course of "tens" of years but rather twenty poems written within thirteen months of each other and published together only because (1) the author hadn't written anything else and (2) the author needed to, lest he freeze his ass to death, pay for kerosene. The consequences should come as no surprise to anyone. On the one hand, the ignorant English-speaking American (i.e., me) is given a taste of (maybe) one of the most celebrated modernist poets in Hungarian history—seriously, don't you dare quote me on that: something like an hors-d'œuvre from which one might sample the various stages of a person's losing their fucking grip on reality. This has benefits, especially for the kind of reader who deigns, over the course of a lifetime, to chase loftier flavors: an entire life abridged, exposure to a set of experiences the reader would otherwise have to go without. On the other hand, however, something, I'd argue, much more desirable is given up in exchange. In brief, what I mean to say is that I'd rather have nothing if not everything. Perhaps it's in the interest of history; perhaps it's done out of love for the subject matter. At any rate, there are other collections than these; and if someone like me is going to take the time to complain about the—as I see them—inadequate labors of someone far smarter and far more industrious than they are—spouting pseudo-philosophical garbage about the importance of authenticity, no less—then they might as well save face and just learn how to read József in the original.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a speaker of the original language in which these verses were composed (i.e., Hungarian).
DISCLAIMER: This edition, acquired online via legal means, consists of (if my count can be trusted) forty lyric poems translated into English by a man named Peter Hargitai.
DISCLAIMER: Attila József, like plenty other of the poetically inclined, took his own life at the age of thirty-two. His choice of murder weapon was a locomotive.
DISCLAIMER: József was a communist (which is, of course, totally fine). Ironically, the first piece of writing in this volume—other than the introduction, that is—is a two-page curriculum vitae (also known as a "CV") in which the author describes his work experience, his hard and soft skills, and—unsurprisingly—his earnest interest in obtaining long-term employment; despite its obvious prosidy, starting a poetry collection in this way, especially one whose poems are, in the main, so brooding and cryptic, is deeply evocative.
DISCLAIMER: The author (i.e., Attila József—not Peter Hargitai, who is, as I said, the translator) had a long history of mental illness, namely depression and schizophrenia. He never married (which is, also, totally fine of course) and, at the time of his death, was living with his sister: I am momentarily reminded of Hölderlin (another sacrifice to our verse-enamored homeboy Apollo). As might be expected—though perhaps it would have been better for me to have first experienced these poems without my having become privy to this information (you can imagine why)—the poems contained herein are, in a word, dark. The poet's main tool of communication is a preponderance of images—stacked on top of one another, oftentimes without narrative or explanation (think late Sylvia Plath). The poet's main tool of communication is a locomotive.
DISCLAIMER: Before this, never had I read a collection of poetry, though perhaps the fault is on me for not being well-read enough, that I would describe as Lynchian. "Kafkaesque" is a good word too. These poems, while a bit dismal in tone, are alive with the incessant clanking of machinery and the hustle-bustle of workers (especially, for some reason, craftsman), customers, and people frantically coming and going. I read these quickly—this (i.e., reading poetry too fast) is a thing I'm continuously failing to stop doing, though not for a lack of trying (I promise)—but, without being able to provide specific examples, I was struck throughout, again and again, by the kind of dread typical of a groaning, smoke-billowing machine. This is not the lifeless, immotive death of a nuclear wasteland; it's something more akin to the highly embellished nightmare of late-stage capitalism. It's a wholly unnatural human-borne presence—even though a rather famous-seeming poem entitled "I Am Not the One Shouting" (also given to a whole collection published in the author's lifetime) suggests that József had dark and brooding things to say about the natural world as well—that moves not necessarily of its own volition but moves unstoppingly nonetheless. For most of us, the terrible thing about life is the assured promise of its eventual cessation. However, for József, as I can imagine some graduate student typing away in the coldest corner of some Soviet library or a long-abandoned place of higher learning, "it is rather that something stupid and greedy might endlessly self-propogate because there's nothing left to oppose it."
DISCLAIMER: The trouble with translated, posthumously published poetry collections is that— for starters—they lack thematic continuity. In his home country of Hungary, József, though often struggling financially and, as aforementioned, psychically as well, nevertheless experienced some degree of literary success throughout his needlessly short life. Whenever the good-intentioned artist/translator decides to bring the work of a previously unrevealed poet/writer to the English-speaking world, the project's ambition seems to overshadow any inclination toward practicality—or perhaps we should, instead, say "authenticity." What I want is not The Collected Truncated Attila József. I don't want forty-odd poems taken from various points in the author's career. I want—however sincerely, perhaps wrongly—the work of the poet as the poet intended it to be read; oftentimes, this means not hundreds of hodgepodge verses gathered together over the course of "tens" of years but rather twenty poems written within thirteen months of each other and published together only because (1) the author hadn't written anything else and (2) the author needed to, lest he freeze his ass to death, pay for kerosene. The consequences should come as no surprise to anyone. On the one hand, the ignorant English-speaking American (i.e., me) is given a taste of (maybe) one of the most celebrated modernist poets in Hungarian history—seriously, don't you dare quote me on that: something like an hors-d'œuvre from which one might sample the various stages of a person's losing their fucking grip on reality. This has benefits, especially for the kind of reader who deigns, over the course of a lifetime, to chase loftier flavors: an entire life abridged, exposure to a set of experiences the reader would otherwise have to go without. On the other hand, however, something, I'd argue, much more desirable is given up in exchange. In brief, what I mean to say is that I'd rather have nothing if not everything. Perhaps it's in the interest of history; perhaps it's done out of love for the subject matter. At any rate, there are other collections than these; and if someone like me is going to take the time to complain about the—as I see them—inadequate labors of someone far smarter and far more industrious than they are—spouting pseudo-philosophical garbage about the importance of authenticity, no less—then they might as well save face and just learn how to read József in the original.
February 7, 2016
"Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Let it be, so it won't be,
let it be, so it won't be--let us say: Edith.
Small invisible yellow chickens
peck at the stars.
Maybe it's dawn and Budapest is burning.
Maybe it's the paint that melts
on a giant girl's sweltering face.
...
Or is this an unfamiliar morning,
or a foreign railway station
where I've come?
I have no luggage.
There's something I forgot--maybe if I remember.
One: nothing.
Two: nothing.
Three: nothing.
Sounds peculiar as the rail station
where there's nothing at all."
"Nothing", p. 85.
Let it be, so it won't be,
let it be, so it won't be--let us say: Edith.
Small invisible yellow chickens
peck at the stars.
Maybe it's dawn and Budapest is burning.
Maybe it's the paint that melts
on a giant girl's sweltering face.
...
Or is this an unfamiliar morning,
or a foreign railway station
where I've come?
I have no luggage.
There's something I forgot--maybe if I remember.
One: nothing.
Two: nothing.
Three: nothing.
Sounds peculiar as the rail station
where there's nothing at all."
"Nothing", p. 85.
May 12, 2025
After reading a humorous, manic mystery novel until blood came streaming out my earholes, I decided to read a Hungarian poet who committed suicide a la Anna Karenina, namely by throwing himself under a train. As I write this review on Mother's Day, I read the ultimate tribute to a departed mother:
You gave me your own supper—did I ask for it?It is strange that the image of trains runs through the 40 poems in this superb collection. It is as if Jozsef was casting eyes on the rails with the intention of ending his life:
And why did you bend your back to wash clothes?
So you could straighten it in a wooden box?
I have no luggageThere's little in this collection that smacks of joy, but what there is is powerful.
There's something I forgot—maybe if I remember.
One: nothing.
Two: nothing.
Three: nothing.
Sounds peculiar as the rail station
where there's nothing at all.
December 23, 2024
Collection of poems by Hungarian poet Atilla Jozsef. Mt favorites were Balatonszarszo, and Weary Man
May 28, 2013
Wonderful images from a young Humgarian poet who killed himself in 1937 at age 32. Some of the later poems are too much a fraught, seemingly random collection of images to interest me, but most prompt the reader to see the world in a new refraction.
A wave length measures my heighth..
or in another poem
The past tumbles through
stonelike through space,
blue time floating off without a sound. ...
or in another
Autumn fog is scraping
bald interlacing branches,
frost squints on the railing.
Peter Hargitai won the 1988 Landon Translation Prize for this work.
A wave length measures my heighth..
or in another poem
The past tumbles through
stonelike through space,
blue time floating off without a sound. ...
or in another
Autumn fog is scraping
bald interlacing branches,
frost squints on the railing.
Peter Hargitai won the 1988 Landon Translation Prize for this work.
August 15, 2018
Gives my favourite poets a run for their money. Stunning
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews