The Iron-Blue Vault: Selected Poems

By Attila József

Book Overview

Attila Jozsef's extraordinary poetry is exhilarating in its power and transcends the scars of a difficult life. He is a genuinely revolutionary poet, neither simple-minded nor difficult, though his thought and imagery are complex. A deeply divided man, his poetry has a robust physicality as well as a jaunty and heroic intelligence-which is Marxist in its dedication but fueled in its audacity by both Freud and Surrealism. This new collection of his poetry includes two lengthy essays by the translators on his life and his art of poetry.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1852245034
• ISBN13: 9781852245030
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Length: 162 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Intense poetry from a tragic life

This superb collection of Jozsef's poetry is a wonderful introduction to his work. This was also my introduction to his work, so I found Ozsvath's introductory biography and Turner's analysis of Jozsef's poetry quite welcome and insightful. Jozsef's poetry is lyrically balanced and a beautiful representation of the dark and light contained in one's inner self. His injection of politics and his personal life into the poems is masterful and captivating. Be sure to check out "With a Pure Heart", "Ode", and "Lay Your Hand" (those being among my favorites). Any reader interested in the effects of mental illness on an artist's work will find this collection fascinating and intense.

maybe the best available

Do not believe the editorial review, the Bátki translations are lousy. I am a Hungarian and these are much closer to the originals. To be more precise, no translation comes close to the originals in his case... The Bátki ones are almost mirror translations with no rhyme at all. Maybe one should read them together? Anyway, for one book one should buy this. (Or learn Hungarian... provided one's interested in free word order and such delicacies.) And whether he committed suicide or not is still open to debate; latest research shows it might had been an accident.