(semi) sweet handicap

Poet Géza Aczél, editor-in-chief of the Great Plain magazine, will turn 60 next year. In person, we will be able to greet the poet, literary historian, editor and cultural organizer at the same time, about whom we can already say with certainty that it has a place at the forefront of the development of Hungarian literature over the past three decades. his collection of poems (half) sweet handicap provides the reader with a comprehensive picture of his lyrical work. This poetry initially shows the poet of Debrecen to the successor of the Hungarian avant-garde, the heir of Kassák. In the last decade, however, his art of poetry has undergone a metamorphosis that is surprising and particularly rare in the history of Hungarian lyric. The first summary of this was his volume entitled (Window) Chef, the diction of which Ferenc Juhász called elementary and inspired. Steel stepped out of the magic circle of the traditional avant-garde by preserving all its freshness and linguistic ingenuity to create a poetry that seemed almost natural, but even more complex from the inside. This way of speaking has been an unheard of sensitive device in his hand ever since. It can make room for traditional poetic “elevation” as well as for the lyrical shaping of everyday life situations. You can speak about it in every tone: sometimes it is grotesque and mocking, sometimes it is a self-ironically chatter-stumbling, sometimes as a responsible citizen a contemplative public life, and sometimes a melancholy farewell to life. At the same time, the different language levels do not separate inorganically, but balance each other with unparalleled liveliness.