A great loss - and a personal loss for me.  Years ago I chanced upon The Selected Poems of George Faludy, translated by Robin Skelton, U. of Georgia Press.  This remains the only English translation of his poetry, though some of his prose is available.  He's incomparable even in translation, and set a standard I've tried to follow in my work: passion, honesty, and complete absence of bullshit.  I had the honor of speaking to him, in Budapest in the early 90s - over the phone; he was too ill to see anyone - and of hearing him praise my first book.  All best, FP  


September 4, 2006
Gyorgy Faludy, 95, Hungarian Poet and Figure in Resistance, Dies 
By REUTERS
BUDAPEST, Sept. 3 (Reuters) — The Hungarian poet Gyorgy Faludy, a major figure of the resistance against Nazism and Communism, died Friday at his home in Budapest, the national news agency, MTI, reported Saturday. He was 95.

The poet, known to many in the West as George Faludy, was part of Hungary’s 1956 anti-Communist uprising and was to have been a major speaker at a conference to celebrate its 50th anniversary this month.

Mr. Faludy won international fame with his interpretation of Francois Villon ballads in the 1930’s and his autobiographical novel “My Happy Days in Hell” in the 1960’s, which related his escape from fascist Hungary and his return, and imprisonment, in a country under Communist rule.

He fled Hungary twice: first in 1938, when, as a Jew, he was threatened by the growing power of Nazism, and the second time after Soviet tanks crushed the 1956 uprising.

Like his fellow Hungarian and anti-Communist writer, Arthur Koestler, Mr. Faludy wandered the world, living and working in France, Algeria, Britain, Italy and the United States, where he taught for two periods at Columbia University in the 1960’s and 1970’s. 

Toronto, where Mr. Faludy lived for more than 20 years, will inaugurate a George Faludy Park near his former home on Oct. 3. He was a nominee for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Mr. Faludy returned to Hungary for the second time at the end of the 1980’s, after the collapse of communism in central Europe. He lived in Budapest, the city of his birth, with his third wife, Fanny Faludy-Kovacs, until his death.

His face, framed by long, gray hair, often appeared on Hungarian television screens as a symbol of a country leaving behind a century of dictatorships and entering a new era as a member of the European Union.

He wrote in one of his poems about the horrors of the 1940’s: “My aunt cut her neck with a razor blade. The rest died in the war in gas chambers. My sister floats upon the icy Danube.” 

After returning to Hungary after World War II, during which he had enlisted in the United States Army, he was sent by the country’s new Communist government to a concentration camp in Recsk in 1949 for three years.

In the camp, where many people were killed and tortured, Faludy organized literature courses to buoy the spirits of the prisoners.

In “My Happy Days in Hell,” he recounts writing a poem in blood on toilet paper with a straw pulled from a broom.

“He lived everywhere, met everybody and was ousted from everywhere,” the invitation to the celebrations of his 95th birthday last year said, MTI reported.

In addition to Ms. Faludy-Kovacs, Mr. Faludy is survived by his son, Andrew of Britain.



      Learn by Heart This Poem of Mine 


Learn by heart this poem of mine;
books only last a little time
and this one will be borrowed, scarred,
burned by Hungarian border guards,
lost by the library, broken-backed,
its paper dried up, crisped and cracked,
worm-eaten, crumbling into dust,
or slowly brown and self-combust
when climbing Fahrenheit has got
to 451, for that's how hot
your town will be when it burns down.
Learn by heart this poem of mine.

Learn by heart this poem of mine.
Soon books will vanish and you'll find
there won't be any poets or verse
or gas for car or bus - or hearse -
no beer to cheer you till you're crocked,
the liquor stores torn down or locked,
cash only fit to throw away,
as you come closer to that day
when TV steadily transmits
death-rays instead of movie hits
and not a soul to lend a hand
and everything is at an end
but what you hold within your mind,
so find a space there for these lines
and learn by heart this poem of mine.

Learn by heart this poem of mine;
recite it when the putrid tides
that stink of lye break from their beds,
when industry's rank vomit spreads
and covers every patch of ground,
when they've killed every lake and pond,
Destruction humped upon its crutch,
black rotting leaves on every branch;
when gargling plague chokes Springtime's throat
and twilight's breeze is poison, put
your rubber gasmask on and line
by line declaim this poem of mine.

Learn by heart this poem of mine
so, dead, I still will share the time
when you cannot endure a house
deprived of water, light, or gas,
and, stumbling out to find a cave,
roots, berries, nuts to stay alive,
get you a cudgel, find a well,
a bit of land, and, if it's held,
kill the owner, eat the corpse.
I'll trudge beside your faltering steps
between the ruins' broken stones,
whispering "You are dead; you're done!
Where would you go? That soul you own
froze solid when you left your town."
Learn by heart this poem of mine.

Maybe above you, on the earth,
there's nothing left and you, beneath,
deep in your bunker, ask how soon
before the poisoned air leaks down
through layers of lead and concrete. Can
there have been any point to Man
if this is how the thing must end?
What words of comfort can I send?
Shall I admit you've filled my mind
for countless years, through the blind
oppressive dark, the bitter light,
and, though long dead and gone, my hurt
and ancient eyes observe you still?
What else is there for me to tell
to you, who, facing time's design,
will find no use for life or time?
You must forget this poem of mine.

 	-- George Faludy