Éjszakák a zenben. [Nights in Zen] Prae Publishers – Lector Publishers, 2022, Budapest – Târgu Mureș.

 Categories: poetry
Pages: 148
Cover: paperback
ISBN 978-606-8957-41-8

Imre József Balázs (born 1976, Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania) is a poet, critic, and literary historian. He was honored with the Hungarian Attila József Literary Award and the Romanian literary magazine Observator Cultural’s award. He authored the following books of poetry: Ismét másnap (1998); A Dél-Párizs nyárikert (2001); Vidrakönyv (2008); Fogak nyoma (2009); Hanna-hinta (2009); Blanka birodalma (2012); Jung a gépteremben (2014); Álomfarsang (2015); A tenger (2016); Kirándulás a felhőben (2018); Madárábécé (2020); Egyformázni, különbözni (2022).

Nights in Zen extends the surrealist poetic tradition, employing automatic writing and delving into the movement’s core aims and detours. The poetic form is that of prose verse, as is often the case with the surrealists, but its associative structure is more fragmented, more punctuated, more partial. Gathering poems initiated in 2015, Nights in Zen coalesces them into a volume. The work’s novelty lies in its free-flowing text and a series of experiments that both approach and further reflect the poetics of early surrealist works. The texts are individually fragmented in structure, but as a whole they form a panoramic picture of surrealist mythological themes, pop-cultural references and archetypal stories.