Dénes Kiss’ entire oeuvre is based on his own life. It is the most natural thing in the world to draw primarily from oneself but certainly through oneself. Dénes Kiss – although his imagination is constantly besieging the infinite – is unable to “invent” stories or situations. Only to observe, process, transform, rethink and then recreate the existing – in various genres. It is not easy – perhaps not even possible – to separate the poet, the prose writer and the linguist. As his biography shows, a poem he wrote at the age of twenty had a decisive influence on the rest of his life, strongly influencing and even determining the course of its development. For his poem Velünk vagy ellenünk (lit. With Us or Against Us), written in response to the 1956 revolution, he was expelled from all the colleges and universities of the country. However, they could not break his poetic vein, they could not stifle his voice and what he had to say. In 1962, his first book of poems was published (Porba rajzolt szobafalak (lit. Room Walls Drawn by Dust)). The various influences (for example, the influence of Attila József, who shared his fate in many respects), the antecedents and the search for a way forward can be felt in it, yet it speaks in its own voice. In addition to his openness to the wider world and his narrower surroundings, and his attention to his own situation, the poet is also rich in personal experience, and he wants to express all this with great verve and force. Tibor Tüskés noticed this convulsive effort when he wrote about him: “Dénes Kiss apparently had something to say first, and only then did he learn to formulate precisely, to speak clearly, to speak in a nuanced way.” However, this should not be interpreted merely as a criticism; there is no doubt that he is making progress towards the desired goal: “Dénes Kiss has a poetic eye for seeing phenomena, and some of his quite beautiful, powerful and original images will be long remembered.” – the recension continues.
His poetic ars poetics was already well developed at that time. He is surprisingly mature and determined, which characterises his later works throughout. He was aware of how difficult and almost hopeless a vocation this was: “People think in minutes, poets in millennia. That is why they cannot really understand each other.” In this awareness, therefore, he must even more insist on – and counteract – what he realised at an early age: “I sit pondering within myself / I believe: the word preserves me – // Man is incorrigible / but at least he can be made worse” (Felismerés (lit. Recognition)). This (also) probably explains the overwhelming sense of responsibility that accompanies his work, whether it is about personal matters, the homeland, the world, or even the universe. But how far can a man’s responsibility extend when he himself - even to himself - is inscrutable?
The skin of man is torn / and his naked soul is revealed.
But in front of himself and his shadow,
he knows, he will never fade away,
and purity is only in man,
but what he touched,
that is already unclean.
[...]
Street signs
they don’t tell you which way to go.
His words do not show
the man and never anything
does give his full meaning,
because man is a bright light
and all cloudy darkness
(Az ember (The Man))
His passion sometimes drives him to apotheosis. “One day there will be no more / But man will hold himself / above himself / The marrow of his bones will break / time will crush him / Yet this kind is holy” (Az ember himnusza (lit. Hymn of Man)). He is chilled by a tender compassion for the fallible man, who seeks meaning in everything, who is everywhere: “Every speck of dust / is the face of a man / I will cover myself / in the face of a man” (Táviratok (lit. Telegrams)). Because everything comes into being only through man. He is understanding of the erring man, how could he not be, since he himself is struggling with constant (existential) uncertainty: “I cannot make war, / I do not know peace / and I cannot fall to my knees / nor walk upright. // I cannot but laugh / and I cannot but cry. / I can't be completely / and I can’t not exist either.” (Nem tudok (I Can’t)).
Everyone is influenced and impressed by the most distant influences and impressions, and wittingly or unwittingly follows great predecessors, learns from them, until he develops his own individual style and is left alone – with himself. This is particularly true of Dénes Kiss. No matter how many people are around him, he is always surrounded by a kind of impenetrable, elemental loneliness. Deliberate hiding? Is it a necessity or a pleasure, and does he himself try in vain to break out of it? “I’m always walking up and down. / I feel the grid forever.” (Magány (lit. Solitude)). It is perhaps superfluous to dissect this. He has to cling to himself, and cling to himself hard, so that the dizzying experience of the continuous and profound discovery of the world does not make him lose his footing. He must not falter. So that he may go his own way in his insights and judgments, and return to himself with a clear conscience. This task imposed by life is both a burden and a joy, because he would have preferred something else, something more informal: “I didn’t want to be anything / just humming, coming, going // washing in the green winds / covering myself with stars // planting trees, seeing birds / wandering around on hills and valleys // making friends with everyone / not cursing cursers” – he confesses in one of his poems (Mormoló (lit. Grumbling)). But instead of the idyll he longs for, he is confronted with frightening phenomena, incomprehensible reactions and unanswerable questions. Even his “simple”, everyday thoughts are unsettling. First of all, the incessant struggle with death. Or is it flirting?: “In the evening we die, in the morning we are born again. This is what happens throughout our lives, as we speed along at over a thousand and six hundred kilometres per hour…” This is also quite shocking. And that we are not “born again” one day: “Where does man flow to, where does he flow to / what sea does he flow into? / Into what immense ocean / will the world of our eyes flow / what impossible night / will the wasted soul / be its comet or moonlight?” (Hova ömlik (Where It Pours)). “Today is a day / that I can die / All the immortals / are shivering” (Napdobaj (lit. Sun Drum)). However, all this does not inspire him to despairing inaction, but to active living. If only because three of his siblings died before he was born, it was almost a surprise that he survived: “Down in the grave are three cheap, / small coffins bought on credit. // On a thin hill three crosses / were waiting for the fourth. // And life decided otherwise! / So the sentence is harsher: // to remain, to give an account...! / To be afraid to die every day.” (Memento). So he cannot afford to run away. He is determined to carry out his personalised task – like all of us – also to divert attention from what cannot be diverted anyway. At most, to forget it for a while: “I was myself at birth / I will do my death alone” (Egyedül végzem (lit. I Will Do Alone)).
Fortunately, as a counterweight to death, there is the eternal universe itself, because Dénes Kiss will settle for nothing less. He needs infinity in which he can dissolve. “Inside me there is room for everything: / the sun, the moon, the stars, / they all sleep when I sleep, / but sometimes they also squint / through the light curtain of dreams. // Inside me there is room for everything. / I have often wondered: / Will the world be taken in / by something else when I die?” (A világ otthona (lit. Home of the World)). Indeed, with each person the whole world dies. However, it is not as if the poet lives in the clouds, in some abstract world. Everyday, mundane events, the future of this mud bowl, excite him as much as the infinite, and it is here that he is truly in his element. He knows that in the hustle and bustle of the big world, the search for intimacy and homeliness is indispensable, and the broader expression of this is homeland. It binds us to itself with its past and present, and can alleviate cosmic loneliness with a feeling of common destiny. “It reaches down and lifts me up / Homeland is not only a country / Sweet, salutary motherland / Carried by men” (Hazám (lit. My Homeland)). It follows that “Poor is who chooses a homeland / by asking what they pay / Though I feel the Earth as my homeland / I owe it to my roots!” (Tartozás (lit. Debt)). And it doesn’t just fall into our laps, it has to be created, therefore it has to be sacrificed, and not a little: 'To create, to create / homeland for home / home for homeland / to sprinkle it with our blood / The rest is all / just an explanation” (Házam hazám (lit. My Home my Homeland)).
Alongside the consciously formed and assumed national attachment, the influence of individual roots, i.e. the family, is just as important. “If I run, / the trees of my childhood will come with me. / Only the tales in the meadows /do not happen any more.” (Ha futok (lit. If I Run)). Yet Dénes Kiss brought a heavy legacy from home. “The sting of nettles hurts. / Do not spare me, home land, / your face-turning, childhood landscape. / The little boy will do anything for you! / And if I never find my way home, / beat my whole body; / a whiplash of memories, / a faithful sting of nettles.” (Emlékek korbácsnyoma (lit. Whiplash of memories)). He struggles with it incessantly, his attachment is not diminished by the difficult past, the circumstances he suffered, and he cannot emotionally escape from them. This is what fuels his literary activity, his attempt to understand retrospectively the development of his own life and that of his environment, the role of man and his circumstances, the causes and the connections that ultimately make up the destiny of man – of a man. Which is exclusively his own. What begins at the parental home and, pros or cons, mostly determines what follows. And it is an unbreakable connection, endless in its process: “Forever and ever from the womb / man shall seek his fate / (...) I will destroy the body of my parent within me / My son you shall bury me like this” (Hagyaték (lit. Legacy). But life goes on: “I have often thought of my youth / and life seemed endless / Now I look my sweet grandchild / for the endlessness beyond existence” (Unokám szeme (lit. My Grandson’s Eyes). The family bond is unbreakable, however we may wish to escape it, whether because of a completely different way of life, a different world view or less than heart-warming memories. In vain. “The sky in my mother's eyes / with the trees of my childhood / Catches up and surrounds me / a bird song of twenty years” (Anyám bolygócsillaga (My Mother’s Planetary Star)). The burden of struggling with parents, of agonising experiences embedded in the gut, often growing with a pang of anguish, is a lifelong burden. “My mother’s face is a prehistoric finding / listening to windswept landscapes / silence nested in her hair / Me whom life was gathered by her / I leave her alone” (Anyfigurák (lit. Mother Figures). “He wields a hammer and glass / and keys, stubborn in lock. / He would have liked me to be a locksmith, / and a drinking companion. // But ever since I can remember him, / I have always contradicted his word. / I have never praised his profession, / in my grip they all became clumsy // hammers with precise blows. / He forgives my sins no more: / his glance, like a cold knife / his hesitant iron-grind” (Apám (lit. My Father).
For Dénes Kiss, love and friendship are indispensable. That is why he takes these relationships very seriously. One could say deadly seriously: “Friends are what leave a man alone / not strangers./ He just walks, he just stands and waits / for his loneliness to disperse like a mist over the city. (...) Like children, he would like / to be looked for around the corner. / Because he hides and chooses his hiding place / so that he will never be found / But if he finds out that he hasn’t been looked for / he will die there.” (Rejtekhely (lit. Hiding Place). Whatever he sets his mind to, he can only do it with total devotion, with hopeful expectation, and with a longing that can never be satisfied. “Your body is a well cultivated field: / hills, valleys, soft groves, / born in my dreams / my source is your life. / But it never quenches, / it never quenches my thirst, / leaning towards you, the water / gives me another thirst.” (Tested (Your body)). In no situation can he switch off, become self-absorbed, concentrate on just one thing, at the same time there is something else hidden in anything. One must be constantly alert, awake, not missing an opportunity, not missing a momentary phenomenon that may never reappear. “I bent down for a pebble / and lifted up a star – / I went for kisses of breath / and your eyes caught me forever...! / My fate and my life are thus judged, / With everything, I am always like this: / I bend down for a pebble, / to show the star!” (Ajánlás Mártának (lit. Dedication to Márta)).
And perhaps the greatest experience and real consolation: the fearful observation of the unstoppable continuity of life: “I lie on the floor and listen: / is the future already moving in it? / Billions of ants live on the hill / and do not know that there is death. / They’re saving the egg – I’ve stepped into a nest! – / dragged and carried by the nimble folk, / as if as a last resort / the universe were saved.” (Születés (lit. Birth)).
Nothing escapes his attention, he cannot be distracted by any illusion. He will look into things. He enjoys and appreciates all beauty, but he sees behind it and says: “Mortal rebirth / throbs in every spring / Lies as a whole part / proclaims: immortal” (Minden további értesítés helyett (lit. In Lieu of Any Further Notice). Then, if necessary, he corrects, or more precisely, refines: “For otherwise it is indeed spring / Earth and nature never lie / A petal opens before it breaks / A beautiful but death-scented spring!” (Halálillatú tavasz (lit. Death-scented Spring). He gently looks at objects as all sentient, vulnerable beings. “Objects are to me / like orphans, like the blind, / I help them if I can, / I reach out my hand for them. / And if they want, my palm / gently caresses / their body, their face. / I cry for the objects.” (A tárgyak (The Objects)). He almost seemed to have bypassed God in his extensive and large-scale oeuvre. As he presumably cannot find him, he cannot have a dialogue with him, but it is not possible not to think about him: “What does God think about, if there is one? / What does God think if he thinks something? / Does he think of faith and his followers? / ... nothing has nothing / There is no beginning so there can be no end / God does not think of God anywhere / then it makes no sense / whether his divinity thinks of anything / or anyone ever does / (...) Where there is nothing there is nothing! / And where there is nothing, no one is the lord” (Vagyok! Tehát Gondolkodom (lit. I Am! So I Am Thinking)).
Dénes Kiss continues to expand his interest and his wide range of work – from poems by Finnish, German, Russian, Estonian poets – with translations and children’s poems. Fortunately, as he himself did not grow out of childhood, and he has close contact with his children, he can speak to children of different ages in their own language, through their vision and their truths, interpreting the world that is opening up to them, waiting to be discovered. “How do you know? – From nowhere, but it’s true.” (Ancsa-Pancsa varázslatai (lit. The Spells of Anna-Pancsa)). It is worth mentioning that the frequency of the colour blue is striking in his poems. “In my eyes blue birds fly” (Kék madarak (lit. Blue Birds), “The branches of the blue / birds bud / (...) Where is the end, where is the beginning?” (Hol (lit. Where)), “Memory tastes from the depths / of drinking from the blue waters of the sky” (Vannak (lit. There Are)), “Abracadabra / I have no other / I bury myself in the blue / sky” (A.-bé-cé (lit. A, B, C)), “I search like gold / for childhood summers / the yellow flame of wheat fields / the furrow in the plough / But only the wind blows only the wind / the blue wind of time” (Kék szélben (lit. In the Blue Wind)), “The blue of the sycthe / the b”Blue blue plough blue / the iron of the scythe flashes / blue shards of sky / in my old dreams / blue is the puddle blue is the peace / blue wing winds are evening / (...) up the sky is scythe blue / what has become of my mother / at home she sits her eyes blue / her silence is a shelter” (Hetedhét látomás (lit. Seven Visions)). Regarding his volume entitled Kék, kék, kék (lit. Blue, Blue, Blue) – (“it must be given, it’s an excellent title!”), Balázs Lengyel recognised early on what would only unfold in its fullness much later: “Dénes Kiss is a lover of language, which also means, in practice, that he is obsessed with language torture. The poetic effect is often achieved by a mere stylistic turn, mostly by alliteration, by juxtaposing words with similar sounds. At times it is striking, sometimes frivolous.”
In the decades since his first volume, Dénes Kiss has published more than two dozen books of poetry. Over the years, his style has become more polished, his message more to the point, his outlook more generous, but he has retained his initial attitude towards the world and himself. He did not allow his enthusiasm to be spoiled, his enthusiasm to be dampened, his readiness to act to be diminished by his everyday experiences. He was careful not to become unwillingly like the undesirable circumstances of the moment. He had cautious hopes for the great experience he had not hoped for, the change of regime, but he had to be disappointed in that as well. “Money, power domination are raging / Nobodies of the minute are blowing up / Take my hand and do not be alarmed / At the bloody dawn screaming with light” (Ne riadj (lit. Do Not Be Alarmed). The much desired freedom does not only bring joyful results either: “Of course it burns and bites / its snarling face is bloody / That’s why I feel as if I’ve been caught in a trap – / I’ve fallen into this freedom!” (Szabadság fenevad (lit. Beast of Freedom)). Dénes Kiss, however, remained who he was. “He draws, is passionate about science, argues, insults people, clashes with editors, and keeps track of his perceived or real grievances. He puts on a shepherd’s cap, plays bridge, goes to matches, flips through magazines, turns his face to the light, but his self-esteem is still that of a village boy who suspects he is thought little by the more abrasive, and yet considers himself better than everyone else. The peculiar world of Dénes Kiss is a world you can get used to. He is a good friend, a good man, always thinking of the good of the community, of the whole Hungarian folk, when he speaks or does something. And let’s not forget that he is a poet. A talented poet with a beautiful dream.” – as his childhood friend Bulcsu Bertha described him without mincing words, earlier in his career.
In his prose works, he explores the same questions as in his poetry. His first youth novel was published in 1970 (Kányadombi indiánok (lit. Indians of Kányadomb), which was based on autobiographical elements. Between the creation of the book and the period of events taking place in it, there were just as far-reaching changes in society as during the time since its publication. This “simple” story, which can be set in any age, is intended to show that the relationship of children to each other and to the outside world, the basic situations and lessons, the real moral issues, are always the same at any time, even if they are expressed differently. His other novels and narratives are all born from personal experience. However, the common, almost clichéd stories of each person rise above the ordinary moments and are embedded in individual destinies. Dénes Kiss’ characters’ vision is never limited by the fact that they are earth-bound in order to view human life from a (very distant) perspective: “Our neglect of the dimensions and time of the universe is as obvious as few things in the world. Yet we are capable of believing that we own it all, of which the Earth and humanity are a single moment, our possession, only we have not yet had the means to enter its immensity. But we embrace it all with the power of poetry. Therefore man is the only wonder of the world, and all magic springs from him.” (Mondd a falaknak! (lit. Tell It to the Walls!) Yes, he examines everything in the light or shadow of human factors. He can’t get enough of the astonishing forms of human behaviour, he can’t get enough of the reactions to seemingly small, insignificant things, which therefore betray almost everything essential without being noticed. Is (the individual) man really what he would like to believe himself to be? How many times does it happen that he cannot explain with anything: “Except that he... hides evil, cruel passions within, and lies incessantly to the outside world when he shows his defencelessness and gentleness. All this did not form a conscious thought that afternoon, but as a willful repressed suspicion, it lurked in the smallest corner of some brain cell.” Is there anything more important than to find one’s own place, to be one with oneself? “Don’t you see? Doesn’t anyone understand that it’s not possible because it’s unworthy? Because something in him wants not to go? (...) Not wanting to offend, he nodded, careful not to let a tear spring from his eye. He felt it would be hard to hold back the tears. So he got angry with himself”. There is no emotion or (self-)pity in any of his writings. Since he even thinks he would approach it, he suddenly and unexpectedly hardens. He does not complain! His heroes do not even need pity, or even sympathy.
What is no longer a matter of choice and decision is the fate of the individual, and it is inescapable. The figure of the Mother, made more vulnerable by her illness (if this can be enhanced by her life’s journey), is dramatised in the pages of Hét gömb rendje (lit. The Order of the Seven Spheres). Her son tries to make up for missed conversations during hospital visits, to unravel family secrets in retrospect. He seems to be trying to get to the bottom of it by asking playful questions about everything else. As if they were playing a game. As if they were playing for fun. As if their poverty – their whole life – were a game... The Mother’s hesitant, sentence by sentence (visit by visit), difficult to reveal confessions, the half-sentences, barely uttered, with their shocking power, reveal the unrevealed moments of a life lived. The “examination” is well done, sometimes frighteningly well... The conclusion is poignant: “Our lives, your father’s and mine, are worth nothing, my son, nothing.”
The writer does not spare himself to descend into the deepest layers of the soul and reality, into those dark corners where only a glimmer of light indicates that – somewhere – there is sunlight. The fate of the no less tragic life of the father does not let him rest either, as he has fought with him all his life. “I don’t want to be like my father! It makes me angry that he looks back at me more and more in the mirror! I don’t want to – I shout at the mirror, at the walls. Will my little boy be like that? (...) When you’re over forty, you become afraid. No, not of death, of futility” (K. Ferenc léglakatos (lit. Ferenc K., Airlocksmith)). The weight of the memories of home does not drag him down into the mud, but rather strengthens him in his struggles. He needs it constantly: the past haunts him, fading in and out, but uninterrupted, alongside the problems and troubles of daily life. He is measured and restrained, but he is not hiding when faced with what has inevitably happened. Is it possible for anyone to “write out” such experiences – now as an adult? “My mother put a big bowl of meat on the table, piled on top of each other. It smelled good. Freshly fried chicken and roast pork bounced on top of each other. My mouth was watering, I was even hungry, but I didn’t dare eat. Even without cutlery. It is a terrible thing to be disgusted with plates and cutlery at home! It’s like being disgusted with your parents!” What we have once been part of – in one way or another – becomes an indelible part of our lives. Dénes Kiss doesn’t absolve himself, but he doesn’t give in to the role of martyr either. Because we cannot get beyond a certain invisible line in unravelling our most personal secrets, they ultimately outweigh our individual ordeals. They become a timeless drama of public interest.
Just as war is not a private matter. Especially not when one is forced into it as a child and thus considers it a natural state of life. Or a game. “We were nine or ten years old when we were touched by a sense of destruction, hatred, helplessness, and danger. Although we tried to play everything, either unconsciously or perhaps as a result of our premonitions and subconscious instincts, as a defence against reality. (…) we played with ammunition, mines and hand grenades. I was lucky, I only got shrapnel in my fingers and right leg. Other children were worse off, some lost an eye, some an arm.” (A csönd születése (lit. The Birth of Silence) This book ends with the defeat of the Germans. Nor could what followed be a private matter – a private life. The publisher did not take it well, but accepted the fact that Dénes Kiss never used the word “liberation”. Nor was “counter-revolution” heard or read from him.
In his novels and plays, he highlights the fact that the position and role of man does not change. Only the scenery that surrounds him, to which he tries to adapt or resist. He illustrates the great injustices of life with the cases of simple people, their futile efforts against the blind fate. Their eternal helplessness and their (secret) longing to be acknowledged for their position with a kind word or just a gesture, but mostly they get nothing more. At the end of a life worked so hard, they are left with the consolation of imagination. “Yes, we need a man in his place. He read somewhere that all men can be replaced. Is that really so? Can he be replaced? No, it’s impossible! (...) Words between each other? No! He shook his head. At that moment he was quite sure that no one could be replaced.” (Milyen is volt az ég? (lit. What Was the Sky Like?)) Nevertheless, the writer has no intention of pointing “upwards”, of conveniently passing on what is not passable. He knows it well – of course he does! – the things worn by the “God-given people”, their influenceability, their compromising behaviour, their cunning. He does not judge, he only points out things, situations, characters. “Human things cannot be forced. They must be trusted to work themselves out by example.” (Nyújtózni a felhőkig (lit. Stretch to the Clouds).
In Dénes Kiss’ writings, the dramatic turn is always apparent when, at the peak of the narrative’s rising tension, the whole situation is suddenly illuminated in a different light by an unexpected turn. The role of narration is taken over by psychology, and the writer no longer narrates, but becomes the protagonist. The tension is not resolved, it remains, and, losing its edge, it becomes more human. There is still no reassuring conclusion, no solution, not even an answer. Perhaps because “the right question might contain the unanswerable factor.” (Végszó helyett (lit. Instead of a Final Word)). How could this combination of personal destiny and brooding character possibly lead to a self-forgetful happiness? However, it can consciously do so. “Happiness is such an exercise and fullness of humanity, such an apprehension of the world, such an understanding of things, such a beauty and sadness of understanding, which is also capable of giving birth to a good death for us.” (A boldogság megmaradásának törvénye (lit. The Law of the Persistence of Happiness). Dénes Kiss may be dissatisfied, but he is not unhappy. Because he does not want to be.
Nor could it have been Csoma Sándor Kőrösi. It is typical that the writer was captivated by the determination, perseverance and willpower of this exceptional character. He dedicated a “tribute play” to the passionate scientist, whom he regards as an inimitable role model. “I was moved by words! (...) Watch out for words! (...) If they take away your eloquent words, they will take away your country! Every word is a little rock of the homeland” (Aranykapu (lit. Golden Gate). The work is also an unspoken exploration of the mystical magic that is the bond of language, which alone and exclusively can provide the intimacy that nothing else can replace.
For a poet and writer, language is not only a raw material that can be shaped, but also an indispensable living space, for Dénes Kiss it is even more. He is a true lover of the – Hungarian – language, and it is the place where he is truly in his element. He cannot get enough of it for a moment. He tastes it, dissects it, and comes up with new discoveries from the seemingly endless and infinite variations of possible explanations. He consults linguists, historians, and studies the structure of foreign languages. He is firmly convinced that Hungarian is built on a system of logic that makes it different from all other languages. He is not trying to put it above them by this statement, but only to draw attention to the differences. “Lots of great forests / guarding my mother tongue / it is impossible in you / for me not to become a bandit" (Nagy erdő (lit. Great Forest). He may sometimes “behave like a bandit”, but he reveals the structure of a linguistic field so sensitively that he easily captivates his audience.
Regarding one’s profession - rather his vocation! - it is much, much more what he acquires and earns through long decades of self-education and practice than what he receives after a few years, whatever high degree certificate or “paper" he has. By his own admission, Dénes Kiss is unprepared who “uninhibitedly” deals with language; in other words, no prejudice prevents him from seeing what he sees. Melody, musicality, mathematics are all closely related to the form of expression of language. There are emotional-intellectual effects attached to the sounds of speech. Everything in our language is found together and is shaped by us, who not only use it, but also build it. It is influenced by archaic memory and changes in historical and social events. Ancient memory is constantly embedded in language, so much so that Dénes Kiss is sure that every word we use is a guardian of some ancient memory – it just needs to be deciphered. Even abstract concepts, he says, are based on the reality of the past, which we no longer remember, but only language preserves. Cognitions and perceptions take on a pictorial form in our imagination and thus become words (Aki fázik, fát keres (lit. Who Is Cold Seeks Wood)). The mechanism of this would require a deeper understanding of the brain’s functioning, its capacity, the beginnings of retrievable memory (Beszélgetések az aggyal (lit. Conversations with the Brain).
His linguistic explorations are based on a particular logic. The structure of the Hungarian language can also be expressed in geometric form, the imaginary pyramid has an internal structure with no beginning, no end, no direction, only a continuous operation. Its essential element is playfulness. Its meaning is carried by the consonants. As long as they remain in place – either without vowels or with the insertion of identical vowels – the text can be understood. He gives numerous examples to support his hypotheses. He also has interesting word definitions, convincingly linking the meanings of words and syllables. He demonstrates how, by expanding a syllable or a verb, we obtain new words and phrases with new meaning, which, on further reflection, always offer new possibilities for deciphering (ŐSnyelv – nyelvŐS? (Lit. ANCIENT language – Language ANCESTOR?)). Do you notice, for example, that the basic word “magyaráz” (explain), “megmagyaráz” (clarify), contains the word “magyar” (Hungarian)? He does not believe in the premise that our words “accidentally” mean what they mean.
His motto, which applies to the whole of his work: “I have never been interested in the things of the world in themselves. Willingly or unwillingly, I have always looked for connections, for interconnections; for causes and effects.” Despite his many activities and genres, Dénes Kiss seems to be first and foremost a poet. He is a poet of desperate hope.
[2012]