A Soundscape of Contemporary Hungarian Poetry

Abstract

Arguing that modernization of expression is indispensible to modernization of perception, the author locates the origins of sound poetry in dada and futurism. While a precise definition is impossible for sound poetry, the problem of visual representation of sound or other sensory modalities, other than the visual, is examined. All this is by way of preamble to a discussion of Hungarian poetry’s long history of musicality in which particular poets are cited. The context of avant-garde development, as colored by politics, both hot and cold, is also explored.