Angels Behind the Stone

The One Hundred Year Old Szent László Grammar and Vocational School

Angels Behind the Stone

The history of the Matyo Alma Mater

– DVD –

konyv_gimnazium_dvdBelief in future, dedication for community, hard work, high-quality education and humanistic approach – are the words that come into my mind when thinking back of the one hundred year capsule of the school. The founders, determined to help the children of the region to improve and progress, have achieved their goal. Each era, in the life of the school, has had such charismatic teachers, whose major influence has helped their students to have become recognized experts wordlwide in their field. For a teacher, the greatest recognition and success is when the students fly farther than their teachers ever did.

We would like to pay a tribute to our colleagues for their dedication, besides the difficulties they often have to face with. We would also like to express our pride concerning our remarkable students, who are seen as role models, though this expression is not something often approved nowadays. It is ever so pleasing to hear how happily alumni recall their high school years spent in the Alma Mater. They have so much to share. We would like future generations shared this spirituality.

“You can give your children but two things, one is roots and the other wings.” Goethe

Director Mrs Juhász

This DVD film, presenting the history of the grammar school, was made to commemorate the jubilee of the Alma Mater. The film is directed by a grammar school alumnus, Csaba Szekeres.

The DVD is available in Hungarian!




Jubilee Almanac 1911-2011

The One Hundred Year Old Szent László Grammar and Vocational School

Jubilee Almanac 1911-2011

konyv_gimnazium_evkonyvBelief in future, dedication for community, hard work, high-quality education and humanistic approach – are the words that come into my mind when thinking back of the one hundred year capsule of the school. The founders, determined to help the children of the region to improve and progress, have achieved their goal. Each era, in the life of the school, has had such charismatic teachers, whose major influence has helped their students to have become recognized experts wordlwide in their field. For a teacher, the greatest recognition and success is when the students fly farther than their teachers ever did.

We would like to pay a tribute to our colleagues for their dedication, besides the difficulties they often have to face with. We would also like to express our pride concerning our remarkable students, who are seen as role models, though this expression is not something often approved nowadays. It is ever so pleasing to hear how happily alumni recall their high school years spent in the Alma Mater. They have so much to share. We would like future generations shared this spirituality.

“You can give your children but two things, one is roots and the other wings.” Goethe

Director Mrs Juhász

The book is available in Hungarian!




The Creek

The Creek

by László Zámborszky

konyv_zamborszkyLászló Zámborszky was born in Aldebrő, Heves County, 1949. He had Swabian background. He attended primary school in his hometown, and secondary school in Miskolc. Thanks to his good teachers of Hungarian and History, he was very much interested in literature and writing as a schoolboy. Most of his life he worked as a miner, and he was happy. He has been living in the heart of Matyóland, in Mezőkövesd, for 20 years now. His vivid writings have been published in various antologies and magazines. His works are centered around the people : he likes the people because they are loveable and vulnerable. So is he.

* * *

His collection of poems, ‘The Crook’ is about a man, in which his life, joy, sorrow, hardship and his fight with his friends and enemies are pictured. László Zámborszky, the author himself, is one of us, he is sensitive, vulnerable, sometimes he is happy sometimes he is not. His writings are a must to read, since he articulates his thoughts and ideas in wonderful poems. Although he loves his homeland, Aldebrő, his ‘adopted’ hometown, Mezőkövesd has provided him new faces and new fellow writers. His world and work have been enriched by the new colours and new faces of the town. He became an accomplished author and also became member of the Matyóland Artists and Friends Association Struggles in life made him wise and today he is indulged in writing wanting to shake up the young and make them to realize that they all have to pay the piper one day. He found his own voice in poetry, his own poetic inspiration thus his descritpive style of everyday life makes his work eternal and makes the reader to reason about life. ” I am like everybody else , still I am unique.” – he writes in one of his poems. His poetry pictures us an ever struggling man, who is craving for love, and finally he finds his peace in religion. This is what his poems on God suggest us. Just like other poets, he is like an open book to his readers. His main message is to remain human even in the world of cruelty.

János Pap

László Zámborszky : Ars Poetica

I am like fine vine
Like Burgundy or Debrő Lime
I have been aging for quite a while
And I hoping for more time
I want to get fermented into good old wine
At present I am like a hippy
Young rebellious, prickly
and not mature yet
Still I can be cold-headed
If you moderate in drinking

The book is available in Hungarian!




Autumn Windmills

Autumn Windmills

by Margit Pető

Foreword

konyv_osziszelkerekMargit Pető’s ‘windwheel’ has been spinning for seventy-five years now –with the autumn landscape of the soul for background – benefiting from winds blowing from all directions and transforming energy into a work of art.

The author, who has lived through both tough and peaceful times yet remained faithful to her native region has been active in more than one field of folk art. However, she has also experienced sifting periods when the unnecessary dropped out but the pure seed remained and it needed only the proper soil to sprout and grow a spike.

Being harvest time, the crop of her new selected poems got harvested during the time of ” rich golden autumn” , being piled in the mistery barns of her ‘ Autumn Windmill’. The title is very appropriate, being not only autobiographical but specific and thus characteristic of the author herself. The wheel and the axe – representing the soul – are whirling, the tower, embodying the man, is standing firmly. The rotating wind blades are grounding time into space and same time milling space into time, so are memories, landscapes, faces, prespectives, hopes and doubts being grounded in the mill of poetry and formed into lines and volumes of poems and finally by a last blow of good wind, into a lyrical ouvre. This book is like a barn full of good harvest, seeds are shining bright like sunshine of the golden autumn days, letting the reader bask in the light of poetry !

31st. May, 2010.
Károly Cseh

MARGIT PETŐ (1935) Mezőkövesd born writer and painter, graduated at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 1960. Her literary works are focused on the ‘Matyo’ tradition. Present day human and social problems are also reflected in her writings and pictures. Her works also radiates the hope into the future.

Published volumes of prose and poetry

Rozmaring ága, virágnak virága, 1984. (prose)
Kedves vendég tiszteltessél, nálunk megvendégeltessél, 1987. (prose)
Csillagrúgtatás, 1993. (poems)
Fogódzó, 2002. (poems)
Honorary citizen of her hometown since 1998. This present anniversary volume is a selection of 75 best poems of 75 years, illustrated by her own paintings.

The book is available in Hungarian!




A Visit in the Dead of the Night

A Visit in the Dead of the Night

by Tamás Tamássy Tálas

konyv_talasDr. Tamás Tálas worked in the town of Mezőkövesd between 1973 and 1981. He started to work as a GP in the parish, later he started a surgery. Then he started to work as a GP in a town near Buda. Meanwhile he spent 2 years working in a polyclinic in Tripoly, Libya. He has been running his private surgery lately.

He has been indulged in writing for more than a decade. Interviews and memos of his have been published. Also, he composed a book on his experiences as a surgeon, on his publications and fantasies, that pictures the past 50 years of national health system and the Hungarian reality.

Extracts from the book :

First Theorem

con tensione

– Don’t be buggered !
The robustic nurse tugged the cushion, as if wanting to shake the doctor to consciousness who was placing his stuff in his drawer. The bulky woman belied her age and physique, as she was stomping with the flying white canvas, as she spread the blanket and was doing the sheets. The doctor was amused watching her fidgety bottom for a few moments. He recalled the times, say forty years ago, when the figure of such a young woman, would attract his attention. Under the white canvas, Joli, his nurse, was catwalking her boobs like two dangling melons, attracting the flashing looks of the apprentice boys glued to her back and bottom. The young nurse was incredibely thin, as she was catwalking, followed by a flock of panting tom-cats. The situation that Joli had a promising partner with a wrestling background (appeared in the ear) has intensified the excitement. The doctor turned back.
– I am not buggered, but they will cut my neck, right?
– Every patient has survived so far.
– I know, it is going to be cut endways not far and wide, still, we are talking about my neck. How do they say? Only the neck will be bloody.
– Why are you nervous? You know the teacher, don’t you?
– Sure, I know her. I am not afraid of her, but I am having cold feet. Forty years ago, I had no idea I would have to deal with this! …Dear Jolan, could you tell me, who put the laxative into my hot chocolate?
– How can you think of the laxative just now? … It was Piri.
– The slim darkie from the ground floor? … I could have never guessed … Back to your question : the complications of a brain surgery can be unexpected. I wonder if you have noticed, that you replied in a flash. I guess, you have a selective memory. You must have had great fun laughing at me dashing to the loo.
The doctor kept sorting his things out, the nurse completed the bedding.
– I’ll bring a temperature chart, meanwhile you can fill in this form, will you? The anesthetist is gonna be here in a minuta, please get your medical reports at hand.
– May I change?
– Indeed, I wanted to ask you, so I can take the clothes into the closet.
– Then you can only escape in your pajamas like in movies.
– I doubt you are gonna escape…Though, you left the department as quickly as a cricket. Would you not call that an escape?
– Defintiely not. Things happened! Why did you not seduce me? I might have stayed.
– Blah- blah. You have not changed. … Go on, get ready, the doctor is coming.
As he was getting undressed squirmly, he started to feel sick. He was acting as a professional guest, but putting on his pajamas, he is simply going to turn into one of the patients on the list. Browsing his medical reports, he felt dizzy…
– I got you a thermometer, tuck it in. Give me your reports, I am gonna check them.
The nurse wrote the chart, and left the medical reports at the end of the bed.
– The doctor is here in the next room, coming soon… Let me know how you are getting on afterwards.
She picked up the sheets lying on the floor and hammered away in the corridor. He has changed and was waiting. His colleague was late. He almost laughed. She is late? Compared to what? Even if she is coming in the hour, she won’t be late. She is free today. It is a different world. This time it is not him being in control. He depends on others. If things go well, he is going to be ‘ done’ by tomorrow. His reports were kinda fine – since he lived alone – even his blood-pressure was low. He picked up the reports, scanned them, then put them back on the bed. Things were settled with the teacher. For quite a while, it seemed, there was no need for an operation, but the damn dumbness he had and this constant pain and torpidity, and he was getting clumsy, too. There was no other choice. He knew, he should be grateful, if he was not getting worse.
He stepped to the window. Facing there was a block of flats. He saw the residents reflected on the balconies of the rooms. Clothes hanging outside in the balcony, iron bars having some revolting geometrical motifs. On the brink of the flatbed road there was a scraggy tree standing ghostly, as a messenger from the past. There was another block of flats towering over the pavement. The smooth rhythm of the balconies have been blurring the details behind a curtain of the perspective.

The book is available in Hungarian!




Without Mask – Unprotected

Without Mask – Unprotected

by József Bíró

konyv_maszknelkul” … Who is this man? Is he an actor or a poet ? He is an actor. And a poet. A poet is fond of playing, acting, having a mask on, and same time finding joy in ruining himself… József Bíró has his faith in the healing power of art and poetry …”

( István Kelényi, poet )

” … he has had his fight with the demons of depths. He is the prototype of the past society. His literary imagination is fed on that past…”

(Sándor Rákos, poet )

“” … József Bíró is an actor and a poet. This duality seems to create the uneasiness and the playfulness that feature his poetry thus it is enriched with surreal images…”

(Béla Vígh, Vigília)

The book is available in Hungarian!




A hundred faces and two

A hundred faces and two

by Sándor Dudás and István Iván Bor

STILLNESS CHIMES

konyv_dudas_szazarcTIn broken and careless times only teardrops are unbreakable. A single teardrop, in which the whole world is reflected, is unbreakable, and shines strangly when is heavy with pity.

Sándor Dudás’s new ‘picture’ book, a tribute to painter and graphic artist István Bor, pictures a hundred faces in haikus and on drawings indicating the original purpose of the Japanese poetic form mixing poetry, painting and music. Poetry and painting are the visible images of the three, music being the invisible part. For the latter lives in one’s inner self, like the cricket in his song – a metaphor by Macuo Baso.

The haikus are composed mostly in avare style, picturing the painful image of mortality. A hundred fading images of a pale face put in words and tamed into rhymes.

And what the poet is silent about has a silence that is almost tinkling. This ” chiming” silence shows the current state of the world itself. ‘ Victoria’ is a rare sign in the present world of cruel survival,

Sándor Dudás’s V –signs are used in the context of ” unbeatable victory” (Sándor Puszta) : The lines : ” What have you done to me? / I am laying my head / into my V-shape arm,/ since it senses the turning of times.” ” The world is out of joint / it is winter time / hence the wild geese / flying in a V towards the north.” – are reinforced by artistic drawings.

These lamented lines, gathered into a volume of book, is a string of ancient and present poems, characteristic of the age. The poems are like teardrops : they may seem the very same, but they all have different shades and different things to reflect. In a world in which only water- and teardrops are rounded.

Midsummer Day of 2009.

Károly Cseh

The book is available in Hungarian!




Butterflies when Pigs are Slaughtered’

Butterflies when Pigs are Slaughtered’

by Sándor Dudás

konyv_pillangokAlthough Sándor Dudás’s third volume of poems were conceived in the month of Libra, they show a peculiar physical and spiritual intimacy. In his poems harmony is created out of the struggling beliefs.

Traditonally, in Hungary, October ( the month of the Libra ) is the time of pig slaughtering. Dudás pictures this time of the year with summer butterflies, pad poplars by the road, moonscapes, snow, vagabond winds, chickadees fighting crows, frost-bitten bluish hands, angel wings turning to blue, shining knives in the sunshine.

Turning into the festive time of autumn the poet’s age counts up the very same number as the number of his works that is wreathed by a bunch of intoxicating sonnets told of apostles taken and naturalized from the Bible. As always, he is stuck to the rule of three: sixty poems are glittering-glooming in the set of thirty sonnets, matching the gentle ‘ sunbeaming’ style of Iván István Bor’s graphics.

His ninety poems will surely leave an imperishable mark for the time of times.

The book is available in Hungarian!




Walnut Shade Cover

Walnut Shade Cover

by Sándor Dudás

BRIGHT IN THE SHADE

konyv_dudas_diofaBorn in Bükkalja and a true follower of János Arany, Sándor Dudás (1941-2010) was a poet, painter, intellectual and a versatile citizen. His sixty-nine poems comprised by his posthumously published volume provide a picture of his land of walnut tree tranquility, in almost all its shades.

Walnut Shade Cover – the title of the volume glitters like gold and casts darkness at the same time as it refers both to life and death, because it implies alike the bright silences of summers and autumns in the homeland and the glooming image of the coffin.

The author’s book, spiced with his own paintings, provides the reader a with a ‘calendar’ of a full range of homeland landscapes, both in its appearances and its contents : all the beauty that the Hungarian soul is familiar with and needs to be fed on.

The blonde curls of waving spring are gone and are replaced by grey curls, just like dew has turned into frost in the world outside. His book spans the lifetime of a man.

As it wanders through images of dying spring winds, arches of blossoming apple trees, overripe August greengages and walnuts searching for light under leaf litter kaleidoscope towards branches laden with snow and frost, this lyric portrays in its evanescence the vibrations of the soul, which finally forms a farewell message – a sign left behind.

” Every human life is the story of failures, downfalls and failed dreams… But the idea of death rationally rounds your story up, making it clear that your little life has always been part of God’ s plan from the very beginning. ” – says Laszlo Cs. Szabo. Let us just hope that his poetry, ending suddenly in the poet’s autum time was part of God’s will and so it is complete. Its meaning will shine and glitter when we read it.

Károly Cseh

Mezőkövesd, 6th March, 2010.

The book is available in Hungarian!




Blue Feathered Sky

Blue Feathered Sky

by Dudás Sándor

Walk the wing

konyv_dudas_kektolluYour childhood summer’s seven-antler-deer is pacing through time, chased by imagination. You transform from timid to inspired in this beautiful pursuit. In this special inspired atmosphere there fuses the above with the below, and the outside with the inside, harmony is being born

Under the spell of such duality lives and works Sándor Dudás in Bükkábrány.

After the earth has grown ( his volume of poems ‘ The Earth Is Growing ‘ was published two years ago ) , the sky also seem to be growing. The haunting place eventually gets wings and takes off, captivating the lime cart driven by frightened horses, up to the sky, transforming into the Great Dipper, and scattering stars like “the army of little children off the chart who are clinged onto the handbarrow.” Other times, with spells, he chases off hawks from goose cages, is doing funny place name readings, evokes the image of ‘bat-rumor’ of village life, is humming lullaby to his granddaughter, Sarah, or is flying on ‘Time-Sleigh’ in Bükkalja, where in spring swells the brooks of Kács and Sály, and there is a footpath up in the “blue court”.

Meeting thirty-three poems of Sándor Dudás, is like a roller-coaster ride on earth, even walking feels like flying with wings trimmed, in a world, where ” all so much charm and colorful like parrots “

If the reader happens to get lost in the bustle of miracles and between the vibrant colours, they will find one of the author’s drawings as a sign, which serves not only as a guideline but is also delightful to look at.

The blessed hesitation is coined into the thrill of discovering.

Károly Cseh

The book is available in Hungarian!