(IN)VENTING BEING... 'This volume is by far Mózsi's best. He goes beyond the cerebral by penetrating the instinctual that lurks in the rarified spaces of sound and sense. The best poems, it is said, are untranslatable. So it is with these poems of love and passion. Time and time again I had to abandon the task of the translator and join the author as poet recreating with him. What I've tried to do is to avoid a banal mirror translation and offer instead what I perceived as the essence of the poetic effect. The poems are never static, they are a kinetic river of relentless images where the best a translator can do is to catch a fleeting glance. One thing is for certain: the poems are much better in their original Hungarian where they are not only a river of re-invented language but an eddy of diction that revels in de(i)fying the dictionary.' Peter Hargitai The Landon Translation Award Academy of American Poets 'What invariably runs through Ferenc Mózsi's Inventing Being is language so inventive, so startling that it acts like a shot of adrenalin energizing these poems of love to a level of originality seldom, if ever, seen in English.' David Miller Author of Death of Shelly and Other Poems 'In this collection of poems Mózsi snatches special moments and makes them into monuments, rediscovering the existing beauty in ourselves and in the world around us.' József Garai Former Editor Hungarian Word, New York, NY Cover design by Dianne Marlene Hargitai Illustrations by László Morvay
