Gabor G. Gyukics – National Beat Poetry Festival 2020 – Watch Here
Gabor G Gyukics (b. 1958) poet, jazz poet, literary translator born in Budapest. He is the author of 1 book of original prose, 9 books of original poetry, 6 in Hungarian, 2 in English, 1 in Arabic, 1 in Bulgarian, 1 in Czech, and 13 books of translations including A Transparent Lion, selected poetry of Attila József and Swimming in the Ground a Contemporary Hungarian Poetry (in English, both with co-translator Michael Castro) and an anthology of North American Indigenous poets in Hungarian titled Medvefelhő a város felett. He writes his poems in English (which is his second language) and Hungarian. He had lived in Holland for two years before moving to the US where he’d lived between 1988-2002, at present he resides in Szeged, Hungary.
His poetic works and translations have been published in over 200 magazines and anthologies in English, Hungarian and other languages worldwide. He is a recipient of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre (BILTC) residency in Canada in 2011.
His latest book in English titled a hermit has no plural was published by Singing Bone Press in the fall of 2015. His latest book in Hungarian was published by Lector Press in May 2018.
In 2018 he published his first jazz poetry CD in English titled Vibration of Words with three amazing Hungarian jazz musicians.
He received the Poesis 25 Prize for Poetry in Satu Mare Romania in 2015, the Salvatore Quasimodo special prize for poetry in 2012, a National Cultural Foundation grant in 2007 and a Füst Milan translator prize in 1999 and in 2017. Thanks to a CEC Arts Link grant, he established the first Open Mike and Jazz Poetry reading series in Hungary in 2000
About the Poetry of Gabor G Gyukics
“Gábor G Gyukics’s conceptual poetry, which employs outstanding compression, effortlessly create and explore connections between incredibly distant and microscopically close subjects, is often compared to North American Indian, Far Eastern and Hermetic poetry.” Protimluv Publishing, Czech Republic
“Elevating the associative musicality of images and thoughts to become an organizing principle is certainly not without roots in the Hungarian poetic tradition, yet the way Gabor G Gyukics is using it still sounds foreign and strange in Europe (and in Hungary), and it is rather close to contemporary American poetry. Mainly because Gyukics’ poetry is not based on edited music and on music in the poetic sense. What is important in the case of this strange ‘tradition’ is the improvisative character, its instantaneity, its direct (yet not individual) subjectivity of live jazz and the ephemer aesthetics of the poems that cannot be canonized and therefore they seem foreign to the aesthetic requirements of European poetry.”
PhD. dr. habil Orsolya Rákai
Gabor G. Gyukics poet, literary translator
Member of the Szépírók Társasága – Hungarian Society of Writers, Critics and Literary Translators
Phone: +36 30 200 4868, E-mail: hercegfy@gmail.com
Book Publications
Original Poetry:
– kié ez az arc in Czech, translated by Robert Svoboda, Protimluv Press, Ostrava, Czech Republic 2019
– kié ez az arc in Arabic, translated by Abdallah Naggar, Sanabel Press, Cairo, Egypt 2019
– végigtapint, selected poetry in Hungarian, Lector Publishing, Romania 2018
– A Hermit Has no Plural, in English, Singing Bone Press, Columbia, SC, USA 2015 – Selected Poetry in Bulgarian, translated by Stefka Hrusanova, Gutenberg Publishing House, Sofia, Bulgaria 2013
– kié ez az arc, in Hungarian, L’Harmattan Publishing, Budapest 2011
– Lepkék vitrinben, in Hungarian, Fekete Sas Publishing, Budapest 2006
– versKÉPzelet, poems and writings on art in Hungarian and 22 works by 20 contemporary fine artists, Hanga Publishing, Budapest 2005
– A remete többes száma, in Hungarian, Fekete Sas Publishing, Budapest, 2002
– Last Smile, English-Hungarian, Cross Cultural Communications, New York, 1999, Preface by Hal Sirowitz
– Utcai Elődás, in Hungarian, Fekete Sas Publishing, Budapest, 1998
Original Prose:
Kisfa galeri «socio-horror», in Hungarian, L’Harmattan Publishing, Budapest, 2014
Poetry Translations to Hungarian:
– Medvefelhő a város felett, contemporary North American indeginous poetry anthology, Scolar Publishing, Budapest Hungary 2015
– Nagy Kis-Madár, the poetry of Jim Northrup, Új Forrás and Librarius Publishings, Tata, Hungary 2013
– Átkelés, Contemporary American Poetry Anthology, Nyitott Könyvműhely, 2007 Budapest, Hungary
– Cornucopion-Bőségszaru, selected poetry of Ira Cohen, I.T.M and Új Mandátum Publishings, Budapest, Hungary 2007
– A szem önéletrajza, selected poetry of Paul Auster, Barruss Publishing, 2007 Budapest
– Half-Naked Muse / Félmeztelen múzsa, Contemporary American Poetry Anthology, bi-lingual, Magyar Könyvklub Publishing, Budapest, Hungary 2000
Poetry Translations to English:
– The Heart Attacks of the Soul, Gypsy Cantos, selected poetry of AttilaBalogh, co-translator Michael Castro, Singing Bone Press, Charleston, SC, USA, 2018