Amy Károlyi’s oeuvre occupies a singular and somewhat anomalous position within the history of Hungarian poetry; literary life did not offer her a leading role. She nevertheless created in accordance with her own inner measure, and it was precisely this attitude – one that disregarded the voice of the outside world – that enabled her to outgrow the role that had been predicted for her. In his appraisal written in the 1960s, Dezső Tandori spoke of a “rapidly enriching, crystallising oeuvre” that would “continue to grow ever further over time.”
When taking stock of Amy Károlyi’s life course and poetic oeuvre, one must first address the fact that being a poet as the wife of Sándor Weöres was by no means an easy undertaking. Throughout the creative decades of her career, the literary public consistently regarded her as a figure in the shadows, finding it difficult to acknowledge that her own poetic oeuvre deserved attention in its own right rather than being dismissed as a kind of “poet’s wife” pastime. In order to see and understand the value and singularity of Amy Károlyi’s poetry, it is therefore necessary to begin from a more distant perspective. Amy Károlyi was almost thirty years old when her first poem was published, and nearly forty when her first volume appeared. These are unusual and, at first sight, disadvantageous circumstances; yet they constitute precisely one of those features of her career that set her apart from her poetic contemporaries. As she herself put it, “the creative forces worked within me slowly and in darkness, with an almost biological patience and calm. My destiny was in no hurry.” And indeed, this was so. At the time of the publication of her first volume, there is no trace of so-called “juvenilia”. From the very outset, her lyric poetry is permeated by a high degree of intellectualism.
In the poems of her first volume, Szegezzetek a földhöz, csillagok (lit. Nail Me to the Ground, Stars, 1947), one can still sense the testing of a poetic voice, efforts to individualise a poetic world, and perhaps a measure of uncertainty; yet one finds no “weak poems” – none, that is, which Amy Károlyi would not have filtered through her manifold sieves. After the publication of this first collection in 1947 – for political reasons as well – a period of quiet years followed. Her next volume appeared in 1957 under the title A holdistennő (lit. The Moon Goddess). This collection may be described as a book of recommencement; what followed thereafter, in 1965, A harmadik ház (lit The Third House), already represents the poetry of a fully mature Amy Károlyi. She continues to preserve an intellectual mode of vision, and this is not merely a kind of superordinate ego or disciplining force; it is also palpable in a poetic practice grounded in knowledge and erudition. The use of parallels drawn from ancient literature is evident, most notably the re-evocation of the world of Greek mythology. Consciousness, concision, and a puritanical mode of expression characterise this volume. Her poems are marked by careful observation of details and by a precise reckoning with even the smallest changes. The associative network of her imagery is remarkably rich, and one also encounters a deliberate creation of tension, produced by an unexpected epithet or poetic image. Behind such images she is able to flash up the deepest interconnections, and she is likewise capable of “unfolding general human meanings from a still life” – perhaps the most significant strength of this volume.
The solitude of apple and knife
in a chequered tablecloth oval.
They wait for the hand, for the mouth,
let the silence of their life open,
let the oval of their silence open. (Ovál [lit. Oval])
The volume closely resembles her preceding collection not only in its length but also in its internal organisation. Amy Károlyi’s assertion that “my own sun shines, my own moon” proves fully applicable to this book as well: within it, her distinctive voice emerges in a manner unmistakable and unconfusable with that of anyone else.
The poems of Anti-mennyország (lit. Anti-Heaven, 1969) bear witness to those inner forces that continually enrich Amy Károlyi’s poetry with renewed inspiration. Critics have regarded the volume as one of the poet’s most fully realised works. Here, the formal achievements of her poetry – her capacity for compression and her linguistic richness – find their most adequate expression. She increasingly banishes imagery as such, and ever more frequently experiments with the linguistic condensation already noted, exploring how the desired effect may be conveyed with the fewest possible words, or even by means of a mere signal or hint. In the poem Alkímia (lit. Alchemy), she articulates her aims in the form of an ars poetica:
Easy for the snake
it can shed its skin
torn by a branch
ripped by a nail –
The soul escapes otherwise
the filth that clings and remains:
in a crucible, at stellar heat
it melts gold out of mud. (Alkímia [lit. Alchemy])
This act of creation “at stellar heat”, the removal from the world’s grime, constitutes the greatest strength of Amy Károlyi’s lyric poetry – and at the same time its greatest danger. For the moment she “steps into the sky, cut into irregular shapes”, she effectively overcomes those forces of gravity that keep her close to reality and endow her poetry with vitality. In Anti-mennyország, it is indisputably those pieces – and perhaps the most beautiful among them – that carry forward the idyllic tone already familiar from her earlier work that prove to be the most important.
The calm of wheat, the calm of sheep
the calm of village graveyards
the calm of dwindling hills, of the widening land,
while on its fiery nape a lamb still sniffs,
the power of passing has no hold on it:
tiny sour cherries sail across it, and wild apple. (Lux perpetua)
This volume, too, preserves the intellectualist mode of vision and the formal discipline of compression. In the collections that follow, the playful elements of her poetics come to assume a more prominent role, as she seeks to articulate herself ever more fully. Her poetry becomes increasingly unified; even in those poems in which she conveys her meaning primarily through the means of prose, one can observe the homogeneity of material and perception that characterises Amy Károlyi’s mature work.
In 1972, Amy Károlyi published the poetry volume -talan, -telen (lit. Without, Lacking), a title that itself signals a state of absence. While giving voice to absence is a characteristically existentialist literary endeavour, here it is complemented by a profoundly human message. This collected volume functions, on the one hand, as the closure of a major phase of her career and, on the other, as a transitional break with the poem in its traditional sense – a rupture that Amy Károlyi herself articulated as follows: “I see that poetry can now only be written in prose. I am not thinking of the bombastic genre of prose poems, but of prose proper – prose in which we economise not only with words and sounds, but even with punctuation marks. This is twentieth-century poetry.” The true realisation of this generic shift can be seen in the volume Kulcslyuk-líra (lit. Keyhole Lyricism), published in 1977, which is almost entirely composed as a collage, a chain of quotations. Elements that appear, at first sight, incompatible are placed side by side and begin to lead a new life. These include verse fragments, linguistic relics, diary excerpts, alongside “golden sayings” and poems crafted with meticulous care. This playful yet weighty simultaneity nevertheless creates a homogeneous lyric mode, thereby inscribing itself into the continuum of modern poetic history. No longer is the capture of lived experience the primary aim; rather, the confrontation with the wordless sphere, with the unconscious, comes to the fore. The luxuriant richness of associations multiplies the possible paths of interpretation, while the lack of closure in individual pieces also generates a productive tension. One of the most intriguing questions raised by the use of collage technique concerns selection and composition: how does the poet choose, and how is a new whole brought into being? In the case of Amy Károlyi, several procedures can be observed. At times, she is content with the possibilities offered by the material itself, simply cutting out poetic images, figures, or lines and juxtaposing them. At other times, it is the grouping and sequencing of emotionally disparate elements that gives rise to lyrical situations. These latter instances are closer to collage sequences; and as the various collage texts enter into relation with one another, they are transformed into montages. The montage technique, in fact, emerges as a natural outgrowth of Amy Károlyi’s poetic practice, since even in her early poems one can already discern the contrapuntal structures of her works, or indeed their distinctly dramatic modes of composition.
The volume Vers és napló (lit. Poem and Diary, 1981) is likewise composed of montages, and it is this collection that Amy Károlyi herself explicitly designates as a summation of her poetic programme. These montages are already more epic in character than the pieces of the preceding volume. Their experiential material is more personal as well, and the first-person singular speaker directs attention towards the creative personality and its inner, personal development. This volume also differs from the previous one in that here we no longer encounter associative image sequences, but rather genuine chains of thought, a succession of situations. “The subject of my poetry is coming into being and passing away, the is and the is not.” Amy Károlyi’s self-definition finds its essential, distilled expression in this poetry collection.
Alongside the two montage volumes, she does not abandon the traditional lyric form either. Two such collections were published: Pakli kártya (lit. A Pack of Cards, 1974) and A nyúl feje (lit. The Rabbit’s Head, 1979), both of which attest that Amy Károlyi continued to cultivate conventional poetic forms in parallel with her formally more experimental work.
In her 1982 poetry collection Nincs út Avilába (lit. No Road to Ávila), one finds numerous poems that may be counted among the outstanding achievements of more recent Hungarian lyric poetry. These poems, too, are marked by Amy Károlyi’s characteristic reticence. She reveals something of herself only through oblique formulations; the use of the first person singular is almost entirely absent from the volume. What is present, however, is her extraordinary empathy. She is drawn to the vulnerable, the solitary, the suffering. With elemental atmospheric force she writes of natural phenomena, and she excels in stylistic imitation (as in Két idillum [lit. Two Idylls]). With few words and great precision, she conjures up faces and relationships (József Attila fényképe az Opera előtt 1937-ben [lit. Attila József’s Photograph in Front of the Opera in 1937]; Egy csáfordi kisasszony udvarháza Csöngén [lit. The Manor House of a Young Lady from Csáford in Csönge]). She has little affinity for tuneless verse that is scarcely distinguishable from prose. Instead, she places great trust in word order, rhyme, rhythm, and not least in human imagination. She favours a type of visionary poetry that perhaps stands closest to the Spanish Baroque. In the poems of this collection, one can also observe a distinctive method of poetic construction: the moment when a single line or a single powerful image becomes the nucleus of the poem, from which the whole text unfolds. In this volume, Amy Károlyi increasingly presents herself as a profoundly suggestive creative force.
In 1984, somewhat interrupting the sequence of poetry collections, the oeuvre was enriched by autobiographical prose. Under the title Születésem története (lit. The Story of My Birth), Amy Károlyi recorded her memoirs; the volume also includes several essays, devoted primarily to well-known and lesser-known women poets (Emily Dickinson, Katharine B. Hathaway). The result is an exceptionally sensitive and airy book, in which childhood memories are presented to the reader already complemented and interpreted through the reflective perspective of the adult self.
In 1986, her volume A szobrok elindulnak (lit. The Statues Set Out) was published. It is a markedly unusual book. On the back cover, the author herself inscribed the following message: “This book is a balance sheet. The final reckoning of a life… And at the end, a firm line: this is as much as I could manage.”
The volumes that follow would, in a sense, overwrite these lines; nevertheless, the intention articulated above must by no means be disregarded. The poems of this book display a curious duality. Renunciation mingles with hope, fact with possibility, past with present. This tension is reinforced by the very segmentation of the poems themselves. Although Amy Károlyi is often regarded as a master of impressionistic short poems – such pieces can be found, for instance, in the collection Nincs út Avilába – in this volume it is rather the long poems and verse sequences that demand attention (Beszélő szobák [lit. Speaking Rooms]; Mert mi lett volna, hogyha másképp [lit. For What If It Had Been Otherwise]). Language, here too, is accorded great emphasis. In fact, the poems are deliberately unadorned; this spareness is itself a manifestation of intentional simplicity. This poetic language and mode of creation are by no means without precedent in the history of Hungarian poetry. In a similar way, verse seems to “flow” from Dezső Kosztolányi, while the name of Lőrinc Szabó may be invoked in connection with the technical realisation of poetic discourse. The interlinked chains of similes and the deliberate interplay between abstraction and concreteness can be observed in Lőrinc Szabó’s poetry in much the same manner.
In 1992, the poetry volume Mindenért mindent (lit. Everything for Everything) was published – a book whose very title already constitutes a confession. In this collection, too, Amy Károlyi’s poetic individuality comes clearly into view, most often grounded in concrete experience. She never seeks permanence; she is far more deeply interested in transitions. The poems gathered here are, in fact, records of meditative moments, snapshots of inner processes, wordless dramas. Amy Károlyi took from her former mentor, Lajos Fülep, a thought that allows one to grasp with particular clarity an essential feature of her poetry. The idea – “there is nothing more powerful on earth than a blade of grass” – explains why the poet is so strongly drawn to small things, to everyday objects that may often appear insignificant at first glance or first reading. One of the distinctive features of the volume is that several of its cycle titles denote situations of communication (Címzett ismeretlen [lit. Addressee Unknown]; Címzett ismert [lit. Addressee Known]; Címzett még mindig ismeretlen [lit. Addressee Still Unknown]). This both signals a turning towards the reader and expresses the poet’s own intention to step out of solitude – and perhaps also the difficulty of doing so. The word “alone” recurs repeatedly. After the death of Sándor Weöres, everything was re-evaluated, and what remained – beyond memory and remembrance – was a clinging to her own craft.
In 1996, the poetry collection A tű foka (lit. The Eye of the Needle) was published; its poems are suffused with serenity and a remarkable precision of expression. At the same time, one must recognise that this volume already belongs to the poetics of an ageing Amy Károlyi, and as such the thought of approaching death quietly nestles between the lines. Amy Károlyi confronts death with composure and a rock-solid humanism, and this attitude is unmistakably felt throughout the poems.
In 1997, a further volume appeared under the title Euridiké hallgatása (lit. Eurydice’s Silence). The presence of myth lends the collection particular force. Its animating figures are Eros and Thanatos, and within the texts it is in fact the steadily increasing dominance of Thanatos over Eros that becomes apparent. This is, of course, hardly surprising, since by this time Amy Károlyi was already a widow, preserving the memory of forty-two shared years and of a shared creative life. Perhaps it is equally natural – and deeply moving – that these two creative lives became so intertwined that even the manuscripts were, quite literally, intermingled. From a philological point of view, it is a striking detail that this volume by Amy Károlyi contains two poems by Sándor Weöres, without any indication of their original authorship.
When taking stock of Amy Károlyi’s poetic oeuvre, one must by no means overlook her contribution to children’s literature. The transformation of children’s poetry initiated by Sándor Weöres with Tündér (lit. Fairy; “Bóbita, bóbita táncol…” [“Bóbita, Bóbita is dancing…”]) – a change that may perhaps be most precisely described as one in which form and content together realise the seriousness of play – was also taken up and further shaped by Amy Károlyi in her own works. Her fairy tales and poems for children virtually accompany her entire creative career. Between 1941 and 1980, several independent volumes appeared (for example Cili Cica kalandjai [lit. The Adventures of Cili the Cat], Tik-tak [lit. Tick-Tock]), Két kis bunda bandukol [lit. Two Little Coats Ambling Along], and others), and she also co-authored collections with Sándor Weöres, notably Tarka forgó (lit. Colourful Whirl, 1958) and Hetedhét ország (lit. Far-Faraway Land, 1975). As a continuation of her work with fairy tales, she translated the Brothers Grimm’s Hófehérke (Snow White), and she also wrote an opera libretto for A pomádé király új ruhája (lit. The New Clothes of King Pomade [based on Andersen’s tale The Emperor’s New Clothes]).
In 2000, her collected volume Látkép visszafele (lit. View Backwards) was published, bringing together not only her poems but also her prose writings; and in 2009 – already posthumously – the volume XX. századi zsoltár (lit. Twentieth-Century Psalm) appeared, edited by Ágota Steinert.
In examining Amy Károlyi’s oeuvre, her work as a literary translator must by no means be left unmentioned. She is best known as the Hungarian translator of Emily Dickinson, but she also translated from a number of other languages; these works appeared primarily in anthologies. A collected volume of her translations was published in 1975 under the title Vonzások és viszonzások (lit. Attractions and Reciprocities). In its afterword, she quotes Emily Dickinson: The Prism never held the Hues, / It only heard them play.
The chosen quotation may be read as a concise summation of her work as a literary translator.
“In the course of translation, she roams the most diverse regions of world poetry, and from everywhere she brings back unfamiliar treasures, which she presents to her readers with the joyous delight of discovery. Beyond the element of sacrifice inherent in the labour of translation, one senses in these renderings that it is a personality deeply in love with poetry, and one who readily inhabits roles, who chooses these poems as the subject of her own self-confession.” (A magyar irodalom története [lit. History of Hungarian Literature], 1986)
Mátyás Domokos writes that Károlyi Amy’s poetry is permeated by “objective sadness, the sadness of Being”. This poetry does not proclaim itself; it is content with what is granted to it, and considering Károlyi Amy’s creative habitus, one may be certain that she would have left behind verses composed to the same exacting standard even if her works had remained unpublished. For she sought to answer only to herself, to her own inner guide. This self-imposed, elevated measure – this intellectual and sensitive mode of perceiving the world – is what characterises Károlyi Amy’s poetry.
[2015]