Hungarian Poetry Reading

I went to a poetry reading. Now, in the States, poetry readings are inevitably attended by insane looking, fat, single women in their early forties. They are held in decrepit cafes that are half a payment ahead of foreclosure in up-and-coming suburbia. There are a lot of hand gestures during recitals and a bathtub full of Killians is consumed before going home, alone, and eating a vat of Cookies & Cream.

This was the second poetry reading I attended in Budapest. The first one was at the Palace of Exhibitions, a celebrity filled, televised event within a 19th century edifice on the Square of Heroes. This second one was inside the Museum of Mass Transit.

The Museum of Mass Transit is in Szentendre (Saint Andrew), a place that has been an artist’s village for something like 120 years. During its history, there were stretches when it had been inhabited strictly by painters, sculptors, poets and other winged people. It is charming and pretty, with whitewashed medieval houses and a cathedral on the hill. The Museum itself is at the terminus of the light rail line, a small, neat little railyard full of trams and light rail carts from the history of Mass Transit. A huge warehouse/port facility building had been converted into the main museum exhibit. The finest of the trams and a few of the light rail cars have been lovingly displayed within. The doors are open on all of them. Children run around like mad and play hide and seek among the bleachers, or pull the chords that still make the bell cry, roleplaying conductors, passengers, even the foolish pedestrian.

A flatbed cart between a pretty yellow tram and a green light rail cart had been set up to act as the poetry platform. Lights were trained upon it and a sound technician was in charge of the microphones. The trams and trains surrounded a sizeable open space within the warehouse. Maybe a hundred chairs have been set up there, with tables from the poetry publishers surrounding the whole scene. There was a table on the extreme right selling homemade sandwiches, sconces and fresh coffee. The other tables were covered in books, manned by women and girls in thick framed glasses. The host for the Event was a man in his early fifties, with a mustache and wavy brown hair. I do not know if he had a title or if he was a big deal, but I assume so.

“Please – let us start with the first four poets. Come up on stage namenamename (I forgot their names except for the pretty brunette with the blue eyes and the red leather coat. Her name was Julietta. Heehee)”.
They all sat down and he read their poems, slowly, with relish. The majority of the poets preferred that he do the reading. A band came on stage when he was done. Four musicians and (yet another) gorgeous brunette in a long dark coat. They began to play and she began to sing poetry, accompanied by flutes, guitar and chello. She had a powerful crystal clear, powerful, contralto voice. When they were done, the host came on stage, flanked by two 8 year old girls.
“During the break these two young ladies came up to me and asked if they could have their works read. They brought this.” Here the host raised a spiral bound, little book. “It is called Our First Book of Poetry by Eszter and Gabriella.” He bowed to the girls and he read two of their poems. The girls stood behind the microphones, beaming, trembling under the lights, listening to their words out of his lips. It was beautiful.
He next called up the winners of the literary competition for the past three years from the nation’s high schools. Two girls and four boys. They came on stage and read their poems, one at a time. They looked too colorful for poets, did not wear nearly enough black. It was too warm for turtlenecks. They were all good. They did not go for quantity or forced angst. The first boy wrote cute children’s poems, susurrating words in perfect rhyme. The second girl wrote Haiku, although she would not have called it that. I envied them. So young and so good, still so immortal, untainted by fear.

After they were done I took a break and meandered outside. It was warmer outside. I saw them on top of an open railcar. They climbed into the exhibit and passed around a bottle of nearly black red wine. Six poets and their girl/boyfriends, drinking red, red, red wine on top of a museum exhibit under the sparkling hammer of the sun. In the Land of the Free they would have been arrested.

Freedom is not defined by abstract ideals. It is defined by its absence. Go and do what you want, always, without hurting others, and when you run into the electric fence, you have found the boundary. In America, people have ran into the electric fence so many times they don’t even test their prison anymore. Nobody tries to walk on the pretty lawn by the public building, drink champagne from a bottle by the riverfront, or hold poetry readings in lofty public buildings. You would get fined, arrested, laughed out of some important man’s office. Dreams have been circumscribed and wings have been clipped. This is why angry young men rampage through their schools, not because they have guns, not because they have books on Hitler. They have no freedom or outlet for self expression.

I am not fishing for comments here. As a rule, I abhor politics. Little monkey brains in little monkey suits, classifying everything in terms of issues, inevitably corrupted by some sacred goal, a thousand times justified in their little monkey brains.