Straight Labyrinth
János Pilinszky in the Poetry, Music, and Thought of Three Hungarian Artists
March 20, 2022 at 3 p.m. EDT
a Zoom event hosted by Diana Senechal
and the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers
Pilinszky, music, poetry, discussion, all in one! Please join the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW), our host Diana Senechal, and our three featured guests—the poet Csenger Kertai and the musicians Gergely Balla (Platon Karataev) and Sebestyén Czakó-Kuraly (Platon Karataev, Cz.K. Sebő)—for an online discussion, recitation, and performance honoring the Hungarian poet János Pilinszky (1921-1981).
This is an extraordinary opportunity to learn more about Pilinszky and to listen to our guests in conversation, poetry, and song. Diana Senechal will interview the guests about Pilinszky and his role in their art and thought; the discussion will be combined with recitations of Pilinszky’s poems and performances of the guest’s own work. The event is free and open to the public via Zoom.
Pilinszky is known around the world for his intensity and brevity of word, his grief over the Holocaust, his solitude and longing for home, his combination of Christian faith and despair, and the translations of his work into English by Ted Hughes, Géza Simon, and others. But his poetry goes far beyond these descriptors.
What makes this event special is not only its bilingual nature, not only its emphasis on an extraordinary twentieth-century Hungarian poet, not only its combination of discussion, poetry, and music, not only its featured guests, but the ease with which the audience will be brought into Pilinszky’s work. By focusing on a few poems—discussing them, reciting them, and presenting translations of them—we hope to leave the audience with something memorable, to which they may later return.
The event will be in English and Hungarian; no knowledge of Hungarian is required. We cordially welcome anyone interested in poetry, literary translation, songs and songwriting, Hungarian language and literature, or Pilinszky himself.
Questions? Email diana@straightlabyrinth.