Shelter Under the Sun: Poetry of Three Hungarian Women

As Orsolya Rákai, literary scholar and associate professor at the University of Szeged writes in the collection’s preface: “[t]he way they see the world, their visions and methods are different. Still they are united by a common point of view. From this perspective the world is alien, often hostile, incomprehensible, and operates according to rules that are not their own, and I, the speaker, pay the price. Still, it doesn’t seem to be changeable within the framework of our longstanding social parlour game. The game itself is the problem, so the poems of this book constantly bump into the walls of the game, questioning it and revealing its absurdity—the absurdity that remains hidden from the players, forever.”

The power of Krisztina Rita Molnár’s poetry lies in their playfulness, in the way she catches and describes the odd occurrences of the everyday life, as in the poem Pigeon.

In the focus of Borbála Kulin’s poetry is love, the experience of female body, home and uniqueness. “She tries to describe and make sense of a world that constantly confines and hurts even those who make every effort to adapt to it”. (Orsolya Rákai in the collection’s preface)

The main topic of Zita Izsó’s poems is trauma. She vocalizes the traumas of women, such as rape, harassment, or infertility, but other traumatic experiences too, such as terminal illness, homelessness, fleeing from war, are also addressed.

Join us for a roundtable discussion with the poets and moderator Owen Good.
The event is free but registration is necessary.