BECOME A MESSAGE: Poems
(September 2015)

Winner of the 2016 Benjamin Franklin Book Award for Poetry

"Lajos Walder is [a] name you should know ..."
—DON PATERSON

"Walder (1913–1945) might be a little-known mid-20th century Hungarian poet, but that has little to do with his talent ... Nothing is too big or too small to be noticed, and this transcendence of self allows Walder to make grand gestures without sounding archaic or pompous ... Walder endows smallness with heavy meaning, propelling the poems forward and giving them heft ..."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"Lajos Walder’s poetry, modern and urgent, committed to its craft, written against its own times, composed on the run, touched by personal and larger histories, is an example of the white-hot way poetry can emerge from a life."
—Kevin Brophy, TEXT


Available as an eBook at Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Blio and other fine eBook retailers.


Authors: Lajos Walder

ISBN 978-1-935830-30-6 (Softcover)
ISBN 978-1-935830-33-7 (eBook)

Arguably the most significant modern Hungarian poet, Lajos Walder was born in 1913 and died in 1945 in the Gunskirchen concentration camp, on the day it was liberated by the Allied forces. Exuberant and witty, poignant and severe, trenchant yet light-hearted, Lajos Walder's poems cut to the quick and stay with you. Reading them is like reliving an era long gone and, at the same time, learning to see our own world with new eyes. For Lajos Walder's "message" speaks to us as directly today as it did to his contemporaries almost a century ago: "... that apart from thieves and murderers // there are also human beings." For the first time, Lajos Walder's complete extant poetry is made available in English, superbly translated by the poet's daughter Agnes Walder, who also provides a beautiful afterword, and with a passionate foreword by Scots fellow poet Don Paterson.

REVIEWS

"Walder (1913–1945) might be a little-known mid-20th century Hungarian poet, but that has little to do with his talent ... Nothing is too big or too small to be noticed, and this transcendence of self allows Walder to make grand gestures without sounding archaic or pompous ... Walder endows smallness with heavy meaning, propelling the poems forward and giving them heft ..."

Publishers Weekly


“Why might we want to read these poems from a young poet of the 1930s in Europe? Firstly, we have a chance to hear the voice of a poet apparently too dangerously outspoken to be allowed to be heard in his lifetime ... But most importantly, Lajos Walder’s poetry, modern and urgent, committed to its craft, written against its own times, composed on the run, touched by personal and larger histories, is an example of the white-hot way poetry can emerge from a life. This is an exciting book to read.”

—Kevin Brophy, Text


"Rarely have I been smitten by a poet, but in Lajos Walder (1913-1945) I have been swept off my feet. His poems, translated by his daughter, Agnes Walder, capture the art of a rare mind, who surveyed his times with an awareness as dark as Franz Kafka s and a humour as light as Milan Kundera's ... A gift of poems, which I am certain will have a very long life in English."

—Rachael Kohn, Australian Jewish News & ABC Radio National, Australia


"Lajos Walder has neither ancestor nor partner in Hungarian literature. He is a poet, without a doubt a lyricist through and through, yet one whose every line and every poetic breath is pure heresy, pure rebellion against accustomed forms of poetry."

—Gábor Thurzó


"Lajos Walder was the most credible voice to express the times between the two world wars. Without this artist s entirely individualistic voice, the overall picture of that period is incomplete."

—Géza Hegedüs













Translated by Agnes Walder & with a Foreword by Don Paterson
ISBN 978-1-935830-30-6 (Softcover)
ISBN 978-1-935830-33-7 (eBook)
Publication Date: September 2 & 8, 2015 (eBook/print)

Arguably the most significant modern Hungarian poet, Lajos Walder was born in 1913 and died in 1945 in the Gunskirchen concentration camp, on the day it was liberated by the Allied forces. Exuberant and witty, poignant and severe, trenchant yet light-hearted, Lajos Walder's poems cut to the quick and stay with you. Reading them is like reliving an era long gone and, at the same time, learning to see our own world with new eyes. For Lajos Walder's "message" speaks to us as directly today as it did to his contemporaries almost a century ago: "... that apart from thieves and murderers // there are also human beings." For the first time, Lajos Walder's complete extant poetry is made available in English, superbly translated by the poet's daughter Agnes Walder, who also provides a beautiful afterword, and with a passionate foreword by Scots fellow poet Don Paterson.






















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