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HAIKU IN HUNGARY

Hungarian speakers first learned of haiku at the beginning of the 20th century from English and French translations. Japanese haiku were first translated into Hungarian in 1907, and a substantial collection of translations of Japanese poetry, including haiku, appeared in 1931. The first original haiku published in Hungarian date from 1936. In 2000 the Haiku Klub was founded in Budapest. And in 2010 the World Haiku Festival was held in Pécs, a city in southern Hungary. Since 2013, the Magyar Haikunap (Hungarian Haiku Day) has been held every year.

Hungarian is the official language of Hungary, and there are substantial ethnic Hungarian minorities in the western part of Romania, in Transylvania and in Slovakia, Croatia, and Serbia as well as a large diaspora throughout Europe and in North America. This article covers haiku activities by ethnic Hungarians.1

THE EMERGENCE OF HAIKU IN HUNGARIAN POETRY

Japanese lyric poetry, and haiku in particular, began to make its presence felt in Hungarian literature in the early 20th century. It was the Hungarian impressionists who first got acquainted with the contemporary English and French haiku translations and were deeply impressed by the intertwining of the exotic miniature pictures, and the spectacle and musicality of the genre. These poets, most of whom were enthusiastic readers of the poetry of Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Rimbaud, made the first attempts to institutionalize haiku in Hungarian lyric poetry.

The first collection of Japanese poetry published in Hungarian was Őszirózsa (Asters), translated from the German in Karl Lorenz’s book, Bunte Blätter, japanische Poesie (Colorful Leaves: Japanese Poetry).2

The most resounding volume of Japanese poetry ever to be published in Hungarian was Dezső Kosztolányi’s Kínai és japán költők (Chinese and Japanese Poets), which has seen innumerable editions since its first appearance in 1931. It was Kosztolányi who actually introduced the genre to the Hungarian public. He did not follow the 17 (5–7–5)–morae convention and he even used a four-line stanza instead of the traditional three. His translations featured end rhyme, a characteristic of Hungarian poetry, and he titled the haiku as well. In spite of these alterations, he created a mood similar to what readers could experience in the original Japanese poems. For his translations Kosztolányi relied on Asatarō Miyamori’s An Anthology of Haiku, Ancient and Modern (1932).

In 1933 Kosztolányi published a series of haiku translations in the journal Nyugat, entitled “Új Japán versek. Harminc haiku” (New Japanese Poems: Thirty Haiku), to which he added a note:

My task was not only to translate haiku into Hungarian, but primarily to interpret two parts of the world, and cultivating the distance of philosophy, I will translate them from Asians to Europeans, taking care not to turn the brevity of the Japanese into a wordstick, nor to over-generalize or circumscribe the Japanese sketch. Only in this way can Asia, a virgin child, approach adult and apathetic Europe. “Asia” in Old Assyrian means “Kingdom of Light” and “Europe” means “Kingdom of Darkness.”

György Faludy was another important literary translator, a dedicated interpreter of Japanese lyrical poetry. His huge 1988 anthology of world poetry, Test és lélek, A világlíra 1400 gyöngyszeme (Body and Soul: 1400 Gems from the World Lyre) included several dozen haiku. Later, in his 2000 anthology, Faludy focused on Japanese verse Japán költészet (Japanese Poetry).

Interest in Japanese haiku has grown greatly since the 1980s. Volumes of translations have appeared one after the other, including Japán haiku versnaptár (1981; Japanese Haiku Poetry Calendar) with translations by Dezső Tandori. and featuring Andō Hiroshige’s classic woodcuts; Fényes telihold: Négy évszak Nipponban: Haikuk és tankák (1988; Shining Full Moon: Four Seasons in Nippon: Haiku and Tanka), translated by István Rácz, and Judit Vihar’s Macuo Basó legszebb haikui (1996; The Most Beautiful Haiku of Matsuo Bashō).

ORIGINAL HAIKU IN HUNGARIAN

By the mid-20th century a number of Hungarian mainstream poets had taken an interest in Japanese poetic genres and began to create haiku of their own. They wrote not only in the style of classical Japanese haiku, inspired by nature and the seasons of the year, but more and more of them wrote in a modern, European fashion as well.

Miklós Radnóti was a poet who died in the Holocaust. Rejected in his final years by society because he was a Jew, he nonetheless identified as Hungarian. His poetry mingled avant-garde and expressionist themes with a new classical style. Radnóti was conscripted into the army in the early 1940s, but being Jewish he was assigned to an unarmed “labor battalion.” Until the last months of his life in 1944 Radnóti continued to write haiku-like poems in a pocket notebook.

Mohács, 1944. október Mohács

Az ökrök száján véres nyál csorog, 
az emberek mind véreset vizelnek, 
a század bűzös, vad csomókban áll. 
Fölöttünk fú a förtelmes halál.
Mohács, October 1944

The oxen drool saliva mixed with blood.
Each one of us is urinating blood.
The squad stands about in knots, stinking, mad.
Death, hideous, is blowing overhead.3

The poetry of Béla Vihar frequently involved philosophical musings. He saw the similarity of haiku to its European counterpart, the epigram, and this was clearly noticeable in his works owing mainly to their punch-line endings. A sample from his Párbeszéd az idővel (1968; Dialogue with Time):

Ketten, egyedül 

Ketten vagyunk a születésnél, 
ketten vagyunk a szerelemben, 
csak a halálban egyedül.
We two, alone

we are two at birth 
we are two in love, lonely
at the time of death4

The tightness and surprising turns in the following poem by János Pilinszky create a haiku-like atmosphere. His poem reflects the sufferings of Christians in the difficult era of socialism:

Négysoros 

Alvó szegek a jéghideg homokban. 
Plakátmagányban ázó éjjelek. 
Égve hagytad a folyosón a villanyt. 
Ma ontják véremet.
Quatrain

Nails asleep under frozen sand.
Nights soaked in poster-loneliness
You left the light on in the corridor
Today my blood is shed.5

The following haiku-like poem by György Petri has a striking structure: it surprises readers in the very first line while producing counterpoint to the opening through the ordinariness of following verses:

Kivándorol egy ország önmagából? 
Megjött a villamosod. 
Siess. Szerbusz.
Will a country emigrate for good and all? 
Your tram is here.
Hurry up, bye-bye!6

After 1975, Petri’s poetry was deemed politically unacceptable, and until 1988 it was available only in samizdat (underground) editions. The first official collection of his poems was published only in 1991.

Sándor Weöres was the first Hungarian poet to write true haiku. His first published haiku appeared in 1936 in the magazine Tükör (Mirror). His haiku did not conform to the classical Japanese format, although he wrote in three lines. He was most interested in the content of the haiku. Its ephemeral nature and the tense atmosphere created by the here and now of each moment is captured by this verse of Weöres’s:

Nézd: az éji hold 
erkélyrácson fönnakadt. 
Újra nézd: már nyoma sincs.
Look, the nightly Moon
stuck at the balcony bar.
look again: No trace!7

Sándor Kányádi was an ethnic Hungarian born in 1929 in Transylvania (a mostly Hungarian-speaking region ceded to Romania after World War I). He was a master of Hungarian poetry and a prominent translator who also wrote haiku. He called his own haiku “nail poems” because of their brevity. Kányádi observed the 5–7–5–syllable convention and did not rhyme his haiku. He often took as his topic the bitter past and the hardships of life in Eastern Europe. The following titled double haiku was included in his 1983 series Két körömre (For Two Nails): 

Őszi éjszaka 

rabszállítóként 
csukódik ránk a sötét 
őszi éjszaka 

üzemelteti 
az újratermelődő 
szívós félelem 
Autumn night

like a prison van
the dark closes in on us
autumn night

a regenerative
tenacious fear
takes hold8

HUNGARIAN HAIKU SINCE THE 1980s

The 1980s in Hungary saw an explosion of interest in haiku. Through the years, Hungarian haiku has acquired some unique features. In some cases the classical form used in Japan was altered, in others the content changed. Some haiku have special Hungarian attributes both in terms of form and theme. Few contemporary haiku poets observe the particular rhythm of haiku, the stress on the first and fifth syllables. Instead, they apply the familiar rhythm patterns of the classic Adonisiac verse, that is, a five-syllable metrical foot consisting of a dactyl ( ˘ ′ ′ ) followed by a trochee ( ˘ ′ ).

If the frog is a recurring character in Japanese haiku, Hungarian haikuists have their own protagonist, katicabogár, the ladybird or ladybug. In his collection Desert Wind, Ferenc Bakos, who has remained faithful to classic Japanese 5–7–5 form, honors katicabogár like this:

gesztenyeszirom 
a szélvédőn – potyautas 
katicabogár 
chestnut petals
on the windscreen—stowaway
a ladybird9

Hungarian haiku have their own holiday-related themes. A distinct group of haiku could be assembled from poems evoking either the joy or the loneliness of Christmas Eve. For example, László Bertók, a poet from the city of Pécs who coined a Hungarian word threeie (little three) for haiku, wrote:

Boldog Karácsony, 
húsz század pelenkái 
lógnak a rácson
Merry Christmas—
the diapers of the 20th century
hanging on the rack10

The relativity of time, loneliness, dreams, pain, fear and war are recurring themes as well. Dezső Tandori pens a beautiful reflection on the ephemeral:

Kavafisz-haiku 

Már fél három! 
Milyen hamar 
elmúlt egy év.
Cavafy’s Haiku

Already half past two!
How quickly
a year passed.11

The master of magical haiku, Tibor Zalán includes in his haiku not only kigo (season words) but also sometimes the time of day: 

Tigrisek lépte 
Puhán és fenyegetőn 
Közeleg az éj 
Tigers’ paws.
Soft and threatening,
the night gets closer.12

Among Hungarian women poets, Ágnes Gergely is master of the perfect form. She takes advantage of the compactness of haiku.

Halálhaiku 

Kaktuszsivatag. 
Mozdulatok terjednek 
üres konyhában.
Death Haiku

Desert of cactus.
Movements are growing ahead
in empty kitchen 13

László Villányi writes beautiful erotica:

Szétnyíló szilva 
nyelvem puha húshoz ér 
lélegzet szakad.
Plum opening up
my tongue touches the soft flesh
my breath is taken away14

Hungarian poets also enjoy writing senryū, humorous verse with irony in haiku form. This haiku by György Tímár demonstrates a sharp, sarcastic humor.

A hiúság fölöslegességéről 

Utánam nagy űr 
támad majd. De előttem 
nagyobb, esküszöm.
Futile vanity

Great void comes
after me. Yet, a still greater
void before me—I swear15

Mátyás Molcer is a haiku poet from Croatia who works in German, Hungarian, and Serbian. In addition to writing haiku, he is a pianist, composer, and painter. He has set his haiku to music, for example, his 24 Haiku for Piano from 1976.

The internationally known composer György Kurtág has also incorporated haiku in his works for voice. His song cycle titled “Messages of the Late Miss R. V. Troussova” for soprano and chamber ensemble (Op. 17, 1980) used 21 short, mostly haiku-like poems in Russian by Rimma Vladimirovna Trussova. Kurtág has also set haiku by Hungarian poets Dezső Tandori and Amy Károlyi to music.

András Ferenc Kovács (born 1959) is a Hungarian poet from Transylvania who writes haiku mainly about nature, Japan, and Japanese culture.

Teaház a Zöld Holdhoz 

Szilvavirágok 
zápora, vízesés zeng — 
hárfázó gésák.
Tea house to the Green Moon

Shower of plum
blossoms, waterfall chimes —
geisha playing the harp. 16

One of the greatest masters of Hungarian haiku was Ákos Fodor. He mused about the genre in these terms:

Haiku turns two people into poets, just like love makes two people lovers. The author is neither a shaman, nor a rhetor, nor a surgeon. Nor is the reader inferior, enduring, or inert. Meeting in this focus, they loosen up and get loosened, heal and get healed, and, as long as they so desire, become something of a Third nature. It is an ascetic form, a protean genre, vivid mentality that creates rather than consumes time and space. Those who can rejoin and touch each other even for a single haiku moment are blissful.17

A winning haiku of Fodor’s:

lábam előtt ült 
egy madár, majd felröppent. 
Nehezebb lettem. 18
in front of my feet
a bird sat, and then took flight.
Now I’m heavier.18

Among the haiku poets of our time, György Vermes (born 1949), Tibor Bornai (born 1955), István Turczi (born 1957) and Marcell Domonkos (born 1982) stand out.

HAIKU ORGANIZATIONS AND COMPETITIONS

After the inaugural World Haiku Festival, held in London and Oxford in 2000, the Hungarian Haiku Club (Magyar Haiku Klub) was established under the aegis of the Hungarian-Japanese Friendship Society (Magyar-Japán Baráti Társaság) and at the instigation of Judit Vihar. From 2000 she served as president. The club also has a general secretary who has always been a university student of Japanese studies and haiku aficionado. The club organizes meetings throughout the year in scenic locales that have a connection with Japan (a Japanese garden, statue park, and so forth). The age of club members varies from 7 to 76 years old. There are four meetings a year, once each season. Meetings always feature a discussion of a haiku-related problem. For example, this could be a question about a structural or stylistic element of haiku, perhaps kigo or utamakura. Club members then compose haiku about the issues under discussion. The Hungarian-Japanese Friendship Society publishes a quarterly paper, Kizuna, (Japanese for “Bonds of Friendship”), and each issue includes a selection of the Haiku Club’s best haiku. The club is still active today.

Every year, the Hungary-Japan Friendship Society organizes Japan Day in various cities around the country: Budapest, Debrecen, Dunaújváros, Kecskemét, Keszthely, Miskolc, Nyíregyháza, Pécs, Székesfehérvár, Zalaegerszeg, and others. Japan Day activities always include a haiku competition.

Each year since 2013, on the third Saturday of April, a Hungarian Haiku Day (Magyar Haikunap) has been organized by the Hungary-Japan Friendship Society in Budapest, Keszthely, and Pécs. Activities typically include haiku readings and competitions on a set theme, haiga and haibun workshops, ginkō (a walk to compose haiku) and kukai (a gathering to share haiku written on the ginkō), and karuta (Japanese playing cards) competitions. Winners receive valuable prizes. Participants have the opportunity to sell their books and haiku-related items. Poets write haiku on their origami creations and distribute them to passers-by on the street.

Attention might be called to other notable haiku contests in Hungary:

  • In 2004 a competition was held in conjunction with at the European Kendō Championship;
  • Napút (The Sun’s Path) has organized a haiku competition every year since 2007. The best haiku are published in the February issue of the magazine;
  • Every year since 2009, when sakura is in bloom, a haiku competition is held in the Botanical Garden at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest;
  • The Budapest office of the Japan Foundation sponsored competitions in 2011 and 2012 for haiku, senryu, and haibun on a preset topic. The members of the jury comprised prominent haiku poets Ákos Fodor, Judit Vihar, and Tibor Zalán. Winners received valuable prizes. The awards ceremonies were made lively with exciting competitive quizzes and games that attracted both seasoned haikuists and the general public.

Judit Vihar has been teaching haiku poetry on the Department of Japanese Studies of Károli Gáspár University of Reformed Church in Budapest since 1994. Students write haiku and renku in Hungarian and Japanese and also translate the work of Japanese authors and prepare presentations on leading Japanese haiku poets.

HAIKU PUBLISHING

In 2010, a massive anthology edited by Judit Vihar, Ezer magyar haiku (One Thousand Hungarian Haiku) came out. It featured the work of 264 writers, ranging from poets renowned for other kinds of poetry to authors whose haiku were first published in the street press and newspapers for the homeless. Haiku were grouped according to 25 topics, for example, patriotism, wine, life in the city, and love.

In 2015 the first large-scale haiku volume of modern Japanese lyric poetry in Hungarian translation was published. Rejtőzködő tó was a translation by Ferenc Bakos and Judit Vihar of Kōko Katō’s A Hidden Pond. Haiku by 184 haiku poets were included, each in two different translations.

Special attention needs to be called to the activities of Gábor Terebess, a lover of Far Eastern culture, Zen monk, and haiku poet. His Terebess Online website is a major source for information about, and haiku by, Hungarian poets (in Hungarian). The companion Terebess Asia Online (TAO) is an omnibus website, primarily in English, covering all aspects of Eastern culture, from “Asian restaurants in Budapest” through “Zen-cyclopedia.” A subsection called Haiku/International is a catalogue of haiku, haiku history, and criticism by and about Western European and North American poets in English and the original languages.

There are several online blogs and websites that focus on haiku. These include the very active private group Haiku kedvelők és írók közössége (Community of Haiku Lovers and Writers) on Facebook, Kimonóban (In Kimono), and the haiku page 3sor.hu, to which poets are invited to submit their haiku for anonymous evaluation by other members and later inclusion on their own haiku page.

HUNGARIAN HAIKU ON THE WORLD STAGE

For many years, Judit Vihar has been Hungary’s paramount ambassador of haiku to the rest of the world, traveling to international meetings, hosting foreign haiku guests, and having her work win prizes and secure inclusion in international anthologies. Some of her signal accomplishments are:

  • In August 2000 she attended the 1st World Haiku Conference in London and Oxford at the invitation of Susumu Takaguchi and the World Haiku Club and gave a lecture on Hungarian haiku;
  • In 2002, she joined Takiguchi and an international group of poets for the 2nd World Haiku Festival in Akita, Japan. Participants walked a section of the path of Matsuo Bashō described in Oku no hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North). Japanese television NHK made a film about the trip that was screened around the world. Vihar won 1st Prize in the English-language haiku competition at the festival with the following haiku:
Behind an old hut 
I drink from the well of 
the Past. 
Régi kunyhóban
megmerítem vödrömet
a múlt kútjában.
  • In 2005, Vihar was the only Hungarian poet to attend the 1st European Haiku Conference in Bad Nauheim, Germany; she gave a lecture on Hungarian haiku;
  • In 2007, the 2nd European Haiku Conference was held in Vadstena, Sweden; again Hungary was represented by Vihar;
  • In 2010 and again in 2015, an International Haiku Festival was held in Gent, Belgium; and Vihar was present at both;
  • In 2011, Ban’ya Natsuishi hosted the 5th World Haiku Festival at Meiji University in Tokyo. On this occasion Ferenc Bakos joined Judit Vihar; both read their own haiku, and Vihar gave a presentation on the role of colors in haiku;
  • In 2013, the 7th Haiku Festival was held at Ovidius University in Constanța, Romania. Bakos and Vihar took part and Vihar gave a lecture on Hungarian haiku;
  • In September 2017, Vihar traveled to Parma, Italy, for the 9th World Haiku Association Conference and gave a lecture;
  • The 10th World Haiku Festival took place at Meiji University in Tokyo in September 2019. Together with polyglot translator Giovanni Borriello, Vihar gave a lecture about European haiku and later won the Japanese haiku contest card.

Perhaps the first international haiku meeting to take place in Hungary was an informal one that took place in Budapest and Érd in the spring of 2003. Twenty-two members of the Haiku Club and two honored guests from abroad, Ikuyo Yoshimura from Asahi University, Japan, and Višnja McMaster from Croatia, gathered at Vihar’s summer house and wrote haiku about the goulash that her husband prepared in a cauldron over an open fire. McMaster recorded the event on videotape.

In a more formal setting, from August 6 to 8, 2010, the city of Pécs played host to the World Haiku Festival sponsored by the World Haiku Club and with Judit Vihar as the local chairperson. Forty-one poets from eleven countries enjoyed a range of formal and informal talks, musical presentations, a ginkō and kukai, and many other manifestations of haiku.

In 2012 an exhibition of Ban’ya Natsuishi’s haiku and Éva Pápai’s watercolors was organized in Budapest. Natsuishi participated and read his poems. At the opening ceremony, Vihar’s students read Natsuishi’s haiku in Japanese and Hungarian. On this occasion Natsuishi also took part in the Haiku Day arranged by the Hungarian Haiku Club.

International anthologies

Hungarian haikuists have had their work included in recent international anthologies. Zoe Savina’s Haiku: “the leaves are back on the tree”—International Anthology (2002) contains seven haiku by Ferenc Bakos and ten by Marcell Domonkos, with texts in English and Greek. Haiku by Judit Vihar were included in David Cobb’s Euro-haiku: A Bi-lingual Anthology (2007), Toshio Kimura’s The Blue Planet: Multilingual Haiku Anthology (2011), and Bruce Ross’s A Vast Sky (2015). Judit Katalin Hollós has two haiku included in the collection of crime-related haiku, Body of Evidence (2017), edited by Canadians kjmunro and Jessica Simon.

Haiku competitions

Judit Vihar and Ferenc Bakos have represented Hungarian haiku and won several notable awards. Vihar, for example, has brought home these awards and prizes:

  • World Haiku Review essay competition (U.K., 2001), 1st Prize
  • The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon (Japan, 2009)
  • Janus Pannonius Translation Prize (Hungarian PEN Club, 2019.

And Bakos has won:

  • A 2nd Prize in the 13th Mainichi Haiku Contest (Japan, 2009);
  • Honorable Mention in the English Haiku Division, 20th Ito En Oi Ocha New Haiku Contest (Japan, 2009);
  • Honorable Mention, 4th Japan–EU English Haiku Contest (Japan, 2013);
  • Special Recognition, Fujisan Haiku Contest, (Japan, 2014);
  • and has been listed on Krzysztof Kokot’s annual “The European Top 100 Most Creative Haiku Authors” in 2010–2013 and 2015.

Marcell Domonkos, Anna Földeáki-Horváth, György Vermes, and Judit Vihar have participated in the European Quarterly Kukai, an online competition in which participants submit their haiku on a prescribed topic, then vote for their favorites.

Author: Judit Vihar

Adapted from: Vihar, “A haiku költészet Magyarországon,” and Vihar, “The History of Hungarian Haiku,” World of Haiku, The Haiku Foundation website

SOURCES / FURTHER READING (PRINT)

Haiku history, criticism, and composition

  • Farkas Ildikó, Szerdahelyi István, Wintermantel Péter, and Umemura Yuko. Tanulmányok a magyar-japán kapcsolatok történetéből (Studies from the History of Hungarian-Japanese Relations). Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó, 2009.
  • Fodor György. “Haiku-világ, világ-haiku” (World of Haiku, Haikuworld). Szkholion (Debrecen, Hungary), 2007/1.
  • Vihar Judit. “A haiku költészet Magyarországon” (Haiku Poetry in Hungary). Ban’ya Natsuishi, ed., World Haiku 9. Tokyo: Shichigatsudo, 2013. Presentation at the 2nd World Haiku Conference, Akita, Japan. Available on Terebess Online website: https://terebess.hu/haiku/magykezdo.html.
  • Vihar Judit. A japán irodalom rövid története (A Brief History of Japanese Literature). Budapest: Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, 1994.
  • Vihar Judit. “A magyar haiku története / A Hungarian Haiku History.” Ban’ya Natsuishi, ed., World Haiku 9. Tokyo: Shichigatsudo, 2013.
  • Vihar Judit. “Az orosz és a magyar haiku története és jellegzetes tulajdonságai” (A Russian and Hungarian Haiku History and Characteristic Signs). Ban’ya Natsuishi, ed. World Haiku 16. Tokyo: Shichigatsudo, 2020.
  • Vihar, Judit. “The Symbol of Colors in Landscape Haiku.” Ban’ya Natsuishi, ed. World Haiku 14. Tokyo: Shichigatsudo, 2018.
  • Vihar Judit. “Néhány fejezet a Magyar-Japán Baráti Társaság Haiku Klubjának történetéből” (Some Chapters from the History of the Haiku Club of the Hungarian-Japanese Friendship Society).
  • Vihar Judit. “Preface.” Sayumi Kamakura Seven Sunsets. Allahabad, India: Cyberwit.net, 2013.
  • Vihar, Judit. “Haiku Poetry in Hungary.” Presentation at the 7th Haiku Festival, Ovidius University, Constanța, Romania, 2012.
  • Vihar, Judit. “The Poet with a Bleeding Throat.” Universitaria, Revista Universităţii “Spiru Haret” (Constanța, Romania) 6:7, 2010.
  • Vihar, Judit. “The Spirit of Haiku.” Japanese Traditional Thought and the Present. Prague: Charles University Institute of East Asian Studies, Japan Center in Prague, February 1996.

Anthologies and collections of haiku translations

  • Ban’ya Natsuishi, ed. World Haiku Conference Anthology 2019. Fujimi, Japan: World Haiku Association, 2019.
  • Ban’ya Natsuishi, ed. World Haiku. Tokyo: World Haiku Association, 2005– . The international annual of the World Haiku Association; includes haiku, conference reports, and essays in Japanese, English, and authors’ original languages.
  • Cobb, David, ed. Euro-haiku: A Bi-lingual Anthology. Introduction by the editor. North Shields, Eng.: Iron Press, 2007. 80 haiku by 80 European poets from 26 countries in the original languages and English.
  • Faludy György. Japán költészet (Japanese Poetry). Budapest: Glória Kiadó, 2000.
  • Faludy György. Test és lélek, A világlíra 1400 gyöngyszeme (Body and Soul: 1400 Gems of the World Lyre). Budapest: Magyar Világ, 1988. 88 haiku are presented on Terebess Online: https://terebess.hu/haiku/mufordito/faludy.html.
  • Japán haiku versnaptár (Japanese Haiku Poetry Calendar). Translated by Tandori Dezső. Selected, translated from Japanese to Hungarian prose and written by Halla István. Budapest: Magyar Helikon, NYIFÜ / Békéscsaba, Dürer, 1981. Haiku by Bashō, Buson, and Issa. Woodcuts by Andō Hiroshige.
  • Katō Kōko, ed. A Hidden Pond: Anthology of Modern Haiku. Translated and with commentary by Kōko Katō and David Burleigh. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1996.
  • Katō Kōko, ed. Rejtőzködő tó. Modern japán haikuk. Translated by Bakos Ferenc and Vihar Judit. Budapest: Cédrus Művészeti Alapítvány, Napkút Kiadó, 2015. Hungarian translation of A Hidden Pond: A Modern Japanese Haiku Anthology (1996).
  • Kimura, Toshio, ed. The Blue Planet: Multilingual Haiku Anthology. Tokyo: Hokumeisha, 2011.
  • kjmunro, and Jessica Simon, eds. Body of Evidence: A Collection of Killer ‘Ku. N.p. (Carlton Place, Ont.): Catkin Press, 2017.
  • Kosztolányi Dezső, trans. Kínai és japán költők (Chinese and Japanese Poets). Budapest: Szépirod. Kiadó, 1957. First published in 1931; later editions in 1995, 1999, and 2004 from different publishers.
  • Kosztolányi Dezső. “Új Japán versek. Harminc haiku” (New Japanese Poems: Thirty Haiku),” Nyugat 7:3 (April 1, 1933). Available on the Arcanum website: https://www.arcanum.hu/hu/online-kiadvanyok/Nyugat-nyugat-1908-1941-FFFF0002/1933-4B297/1933-7-szam-2EC797/kosztolanyi-dezso-uj-japan-versek-harminc-haiku-38C797/.
  • Lorenz, Karl. Bunte Blätter, Japanische Poesie. Tokyo: Takejiro Hasegawa, 1st edition, 1896. Poems in Japanese and German with ten ukiyo-e prints.
  • Lukovszky László, comp. Tavasz (Spring). [Budapest]: [Képcsarnok Vállalat] / Grafikai. Műterem Nyomda, 1967.
  • Matsuo Bashō (Macuo Basó). 333 haiku. Edited by Gy. Horváth László and Tandori Dezső. Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó, 1957.
  • Matsuo Bashō (Macuo Basó). Észak ösvényein—Oku no hosomichi: egy 17. századi japán költő verses útinaplója (Oku no hosomichi (Oku no hosomichi: The Poetry Journal of a 17th-century Japanese Poet). Translated by Judit Vihar. Budapest: Vince Kiadó, 2011.
  • Miyamori Asatarō, translator and annotator. An Anthology of Haiku, Ancient and Modern. Tokyo: Chugai Printing Co., Ltd, 1932.
  • Rácz István, translator. Fényes telihold: Négy évszak Nipponban: Haikuk és tankák (Shining Full Moon: Four Seasons in Nippon: Haiku and Tanka). Budapest: Kozmosz Kv. / Békéscsaba, Hungary: Kner, 1988.
  • Rooney, Padraig, comp. Snowdrops (Hóvirágok). Budapest: 2001. 40 pages. Foreword by Ambassador Kazuo Nukazawa. Winning haiku from a haiku competition among five international schools in Budapest in 2000: 63 haiku in English, including 7 originally written in Japanese and 12 originally in Hungarian.
  • Ross, Bruce, Kōko Katō, Dietmar Tauchner, and Patricia Prime, eds. A Vast Sky: An Anthology of Contemporary World Haiku. Bangor, Maine: Tancho Press, 2015.
  • Savina, Zoe, ed. Χαϊκού: “Τα φύλλα στο δέντρο ξανά”: Παγκόσμια ανθολογία / Khaïkou: “ta filla sto dentro ksana”—Pagkosmia Anthologia / Haiku: “the leaves are back on the tree”—International Anthology. Athens: Ekdosis 5+6, 2002. Haiku by 186 poets from 50 countries.
  • Szepes Erika. Tizenhét szótag: esszék és elemzések (Seventeen Syllables: Essays and Analysis). Budapest: Napkút Kiadó, 2011.
  • Tetsujirō Inoue. Őszirózsa: japán éposz, és még néhány kisebb japán lírai költemény (Asters: A Japanese Epic and a Few Smaller Japanese Lyrical Poems). Hungarian translation by Nyeviczkey Zoltán. Budapest: Révai és Salamon, 1907. Translations from Karl Lorenz, Bunte Blätter, Japanische Poesie (1896).
  • Vihar Judit, comp. and trans. Macuo Basó. legszebb haikui (The Most Beautiful Haiku of Matsuo Bashō). Budapest: Fortuna-Printer Art, 1996.
  • Vihar Judit, editor and foreword. Ezer magyar haiku (A Thousand Hungarian Haiku). Budapest: Napkút Kiadó, 2010.
  • Világ Haiku Fesztivál / World Haiku Festival. Pécs, Hungary: Magyar-Japán Baráti Társaság, 2010. The conference anthology containing haiku by the participants.

Selected individual collections

  • Bakos Ferenc. Sivatagi szél: haiku (Desert Wind: Haiku). Budapest: Ad Librum Kiadó, 2009.
  • Bakos, Ferenc. Desert Wind: Haiku. Winchester, Va.: Red Moon Press, 2015. 79 haiku in Hungarian and English.
  • Fodor Ákos. Akupunktúra (Acupuncture). Budapest: Magvető, 1989. 125 haiku.
  • Fodor Ákos. Gonghangok (Gong Sounds). Budapest: Fekete Sas, 2009.
  • Fodor Ákos. Pontok (Points). Budapest: Napkút Kiadó, 2008.
  • Fodor, Ákos. Gongklänge (Gong Sounds). Klagenfurt, Austria: Wieser Verlag, 2010. In German.
  • Gergely Ágnes. Összegyűjtött versek (Collected Poems). Budapest: Argumentum Kiadó, 2006.
  • Kovács András Ferenc. “Kovács András Ferenc haikui.” Terebess Online. https://terebess.hu/haiku/magyar/kovacsa.html.
  • Molcer Mátyás (Матија Молцер). Haikuk. Subotica, Serbia: Új Symposion, 1991.
  • Oravecz Imre. Egy földterület növénytakarójának változása (Changing the Cover of a Land). Budapest: Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1979.
  • Petri György. Összegyűjtött versek (Collected Poems). Budapest: Magvető Kiadó, 2018.
  • Pilinszky János. Összes versei (Collected Poems). Translated by Ted Hughes and János Csokits. Budapest: Magvető Kiadó, 2015.
  • Radnóti Miklós. Foamy Sky: The Major Poems of Miklós Radnóti. Selected and translated by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Frederick Turner. 3rd bilingual edition. Budapest: Corvina, 2014. In Hungarian and English.
  • Radnóti Miklós. Összegyűjtött versek (Collected Poems). Budapest: Magvető Kiadó, 2016.
  • Terebess, Gábor. Haiku in the Luggage. Translated from the Hungarian by Jon Tarnoc. Budapest: artOrient Press, 2006.
  • Tímár György. “Három haiku” (Three Haiku). Napút (1995: 5).
  • Vihar Béla. Párbeszéd az idővel: válogatott és új versek (Dialogue with Time: Selected and New Poems). Translated by Judit Vihar. Budapest: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, 1968.
  • Villányi László. “Három haiku” (Three Haiku). Új forrás (1995: 10).
  • Weöres Sándor. Elhagyott versek (Abandoned Poems). Budapest: Helikon, 2013.
  • Zalán Tibor. És néhány haiku (And Some Haiku). Drawings by Kovács Péter. Budapest: Napkút Kiadó, 2015.

SOURCES / FURTHER READING (ONLINE)

NOTES

  1. A note on names: Hungarian practice is to place the family name before the given name—e.g., Bartók Béla—as in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. When Hungarian names appear in Western languages, however, the usual practice is to reverse the names into Western order—e.g., Béla Bartók. For this Haikupedia article, Hungarian names in running text are presented in Western order, but names in the bibliography are last name first. [↩]
  2. The original source of Lorenz’s material was Shōichi Toyama, Ryōkichi Yatabe, Tetsujirō Inoue, et al., 新体詩抄 (Shintai Poetry, Part I, reprint December 1884). [↩]
  3. Radnóti Miklós, Összegyűjtött versek (Collected Poems), 2016; trans. Ozsváth Zsuzsanna and Frederick Turner. [↩]
  4. Vihar Béla, Párbeszéd az Idővel, 1968; trans. Vihar Judit. [↩]
  5. Pilinszky János, Összes versei (Collected Poems), 2015; trans. Ted Hughes and Csokits János. [↩]
  6. Petri György, Összegyűjtött versek (Collected Poems), 2018; trans. Vermes György. [↩]
  7. Weöres Sándor, Elhagyott versek (Abandoned Poems), 2013; trans. Vermes György. [↩]
  8. From Kányádi Sándor. “Két körömre” (For Two Nails). Online at http://mek.oszk.hu/02600/02673/html/vers0701.htm. [↩]
  9. Bakos, Desert Wind, 2015. This haiku appeared earlier in a slightly different version and translation by Anatoly Kudryavitsky in Shamrock 16 (December 2010). [↩]
  10. “Bertók László haikui.” Terebess Online: https://terebess.hu/haiku/magyar/bertokl.html; trans. C. Trumbull. [↩]
  11. Tandori Dezső, Egy talált tárgy megtisztítása (Cleaning a Found Object), 1973; trans. Vermes György. [↩]
  12. “Zalán Tibor haikui” (Haiku of Tibor Zalán), Terebess Online: https://terebess.hu/haiku/magyar/zalan.html; trans. Vermes György. [↩]
  13. Gergely Ágnes, Összegyűjtött versek (Collected Poems), 2006; trans. Vermes György. [↩]
  14. Villányi László, “Három haiku” (Three haiku). Új forrás, 1995/10; trans. Vermes György. [↩]
  15. Tímár György, “Három haiku” (Three Haiku). Napút, 1999/5; trans. Vermes György. [↩]
  16. “Kovács András Ferenc haikui,” Terebess Online: https://terebess.hu/haiku/magyar/kovacsa.html; trans. Vihar Judit. [↩]
  17. Fodor Ákos, Pontok (Points), 2008; trans. Vermes György. [↩]
  18. Ibid.; trans. Révbíró Tamás [↩] [↩]
Updated on August 20, 2021
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