Before and After the Fall
Written between 1985 and 1994, these poems record what Sándor Csoóri has called "the chronic memory of violence," namely the horrors of World War II and the repressions of the ensuing forty-five year Communist occupation. Several of the poems written after 1989, the year Communism collapsed in Hungary, cast a cold eye on the state of Hungary as a free nation. Sándor Csoóri, one of Hungary’s most prominent and outspoken poets, is the author of sixteen books of poetry, six books of essays, two novels, and several film scripts. Translated with an Introduction by Len Roberts.
August Evening
See, a hand sweeps stars
from the August sky,
as if my mother swept off
the supper crumbs from the table at home.
Her apron, slipping now and then, smells of parsley
and chives—
The sweet scent of her long-gone garden
sending me to sleep beside you tonight again.
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