Redemption
Redemption, or rather its existence,
may be the hardest thing to describe.
Apple trees root into these words;
a few beers, the streetfront greeneries
do not erase the knowledge that
you left me here all the same,
in the open air, to rot away nice and slowly.
Yet I love you!—You are a miscomposed coherence.
I am Beethoven’s deaf ears, an erased crucifix;
your weaknesses placed on the ground
are the rose-colored twilight inside me.
I
I breathe,
measure,
set up,
smash to bits
the world made in my image.
What was it before this?
I doggedly measured myself
through you alone,
whose light brightens faraway things.
I didn’t find the road to you,
just racked my memory sometimes
by starshine and dark.
At such times I was sad.
Melancholic.
Sick with panic.
Even so,
this is how the mind created new terrains
from which I could start back to you.
I forgot, broke down,
created anew what I am.
Love, happiness, abundance, solace,
and even the void, if I try to possess you again.
Two Poems
Csenger Kertai
translated from the Hungarian by Diana Senechal
Read the original in Hungarian
Listen to the original read by the poet:
I first encountered Csenger Kertai’s poetry through music. A number of the poems from his most recent collection, Hogy nekem jó legyen (For My Good; Napkút Kiadó, 2021), have been set to song or accompaniment by Hungarian musicians; when I heard Cz.K. Sebő’s rendition of “Balaton,” I immediately ordered the book. Upon reading and rereading it, I found the poems humming with musical suggestion: in their organic rhythms, tempo changes, transitions, and contrasts. I try to recreate this in the translations. This requires listening to the words and their relationships, the rhythms of the lines, and the momentum of the whole.
For instance, “A megváltásról” (Redemption) begins, “Hogy van megváltás, / talán a legnehezebb, amit le lehet írni.” This would translate almost literally as “[The fact] that redemption exists / is perhaps the most difficult thing that can be described.” Since that would have turned the poem into an unwieldy tract, I instead translated it as “Redemption, or rather its existence, / may be the hardest thing to describe.” This conveys the poem’s idea that the real difficulty lies in describing not redemption itself, but its existence. This gentle distinction reminds me of a subtle chord shift in a song.
I am likewise drawn to the poems’ religious exploration. Kertai’s poetry is Christian in its worldview and filled with implicit questions: not just about where God is, or why the world is broken, but also about how we play and embody God (or fail to do so). The “I-You” relationships in his poems often carry something of the divine, on both ends of the divide. The roles can switch or mutate, and the exact identity of the “I” or “You” is not as important as the continual reciprocity and changes. Not all of the poems are religious in nature, but most have to do, in some way, with the contours of relation: the boundaries and crossings, the soul coming forward and retreating.
The poems have ease and grace, but they also tie intricate knots. I have spent hours thinking about a single word or testing out possibilities. This is why I translate in the first place, or part of the reason, so I am grateful for this project and look forward to its continuation.
For instance, “A megváltásról” (Redemption) begins, “Hogy van megváltás, / talán a legnehezebb, amit le lehet írni.” This would translate almost literally as “[The fact] that redemption exists / is perhaps the most difficult thing that can be described.” Since that would have turned the poem into an unwieldy tract, I instead translated it as “Redemption, or rather its existence, / may be the hardest thing to describe.” This conveys the poem’s idea that the real difficulty lies in describing not redemption itself, but its existence. This gentle distinction reminds me of a subtle chord shift in a song.
I am likewise drawn to the poems’ religious exploration. Kertai’s poetry is Christian in its worldview and filled with implicit questions: not just about where God is, or why the world is broken, but also about how we play and embody God (or fail to do so). The “I-You” relationships in his poems often carry something of the divine, on both ends of the divide. The roles can switch or mutate, and the exact identity of the “I” or “You” is not as important as the continual reciprocity and changes. Not all of the poems are religious in nature, but most have to do, in some way, with the contours of relation: the boundaries and crossings, the soul coming forward and retreating.
The poems have ease and grace, but they also tie intricate knots. I have spent hours thinking about a single word or testing out possibilities. This is why I translate in the first place, or part of the reason, so I am grateful for this project and look forward to its continuation.
Csenger Kertai (b. 1995) is a Hungarian poet and the author of two poetry collections, Mindig kivirágzik (It Always Blooms; Napkút Kiadó, 2019) and Hogy nekem jó legyen (For My Good; Napkút Kiadó, 2021). He studies aesthetics and Hungarian literature at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Since 2019, he has served as an editor of the arts journal Új Forrás, where he helped create a column featuring young writers. Five poems from his second collection have been set to music by Hungarian musicians; two of his poems, in Diana Senechal’s English translation, will appear in a forthcoming issue of Literary Imagination. Kertai gives frequent readings and interviews, many of which are combined with music. In March 2022, he will be one of the featured guests at an online event, hosted by the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW), in honor of the Hungarian poet János Pilinszky (1921–1981). He is honored to have two of his translated poems appear in Asymptote.
Diana Senechal is the 2011 winner of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities and the author of two books of nonfiction as well as numerous poems, stories, essays, and translations. Her translation of Gyula Jenei’s poetry collection Mindig más (Always Different) will be published by Deep Vellum in February 2022. A member of the Council of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW), she frequently contributes to literary and cultural discussion. She taught for nine years in New York public schools. Since November 2017, she has been living in Szolnok, Hungary, and teaching at the Varga Katalin Gimnázium. In her free time she plays cello, memorizes poems in various languages, and takes long bike rides through the Hungarian countryside. For more about her work, see her website.
