Eternal Monday

Eternal Monday (1999) by György Petri. Bloodaxe Books. ISBN: 9781852245047. Condition: Good.

Monday has never enjoyed a particularly favourable reputation. Songs celebrate Friday. Films adore Saturday night. Even Sunday gets treated with a certain sleepy affection. Monday, meanwhile, arrives carrying unpaid bills, unanswered emails and the uncomfortable suspicion that perhaps the weekend really was too short.

So it takes a poet of uncommon confidence to title a collection Eternal Monday.

György Petri, one of Hungary’s most celebrated twentieth-century poets, was never especially interested in making life comfortable for either himself or his readers. His poetry is sharp, witty, politically aware, deeply personal and frequently laced with a dark humour that can make you laugh just before reminding you why you probably shouldn’t be laughing. It is the literary equivalent of sharing a drink with the cleverest cynic in the room—someone who has seen rather too much of history to believe in easy answers, yet somehow still finds language beautiful enough to keep writing.

This English-language edition from Bloodaxe Books, one of Britain’s finest publishers of contemporary poetry in translation, introduces Petri’s work to a wider audience without sanding away its wonderfully uncompromising edges. These are poems that refuse to pose politely on the page. They prod, question, challenge and occasionally mutter something gloriously sardonic just as you thought you had grasped the point.

Reading Petri is a curious experience. One moment you’re admiring the elegance of a line, the next you’re reconsidering politics, mortality, love or the sheer absurdity of everyday existence. He had an extraordinary ability to combine philosophical seriousness with the sort of dry wit that sneaks up on you halfway through a poem. It is a rare gift, and one that explains why his reputation has continued to grow well beyond Hungary.

Of course, poetry has always suffered from an unfortunate marketing problem. Tell someone you’re reading a thriller and they’ll ask whether it’s any good. Tell them you’re reading poetry and they’ll often look faintly concerned, as though you’ve voluntarily taken up competitive algebra. This is rather unfair. Good poetry simply compresses an astonishing amount of thought into remarkably few words. It is, in effect, the opposite of most meetings.

Eternal Monday also serves as a reminder that translation is an art in its own right. Bringing a poet’s voice across languages is a little like rebuilding an antique clock using different tools while somehow preserving the original chime. When it works, as it does here, the result feels less like a translation than a conversation carried across borders and generations.

This copy remains in good condition, making it an excellent addition for readers of modern European poetry, collectors of Bloodaxe editions or anyone who enjoys discovering writers whose reputation rests not on bestseller lists but on the quiet admiration of generations of fellow poets.

From Crappy Old Books—because not every book promises to change your life. Some merely promise to make you think a little harder about it, preferably on a rainy Monday morning with a mug of tea growing cold beside you. If that sounds strangely appealing, you’ve probably just found your next favourite collection.

Keep browsing: See more Poetry books Other books by Gyorgy Petri