Our chosen poets – Poets of Today, Voices of Tomorrow

Ferenc André (1992, Miercurea Ciuc, Romania) slam poet, literary translator, editor of Látó literary magazine from Târgu Mureș. In the past 10 years he performed at more than 200 literary events and poetry slams. He is committed to helping emerging talents, he leads alternative literary classes and workshops in Hungarian, Romanian and English. He was the president of Bretter György (today: Bréda Ferenc) Literary Circle between 2014-2018. Between the years 2016-2019 he was the editor of Helikon literary magazine from Cluj-Napoca. He’s the editor of Hervay Könyvek (book series) and hmm-pamphlets (chapbook series). He’s member of Beatwándor, and audio-vizual poetry performance. In 2014 he won the first Hungarian slam poetry championship in Transylvania, since then he recieved numerous prizes for his slam poems, literary work and translations. In 2021 he won the newly founded MasterCard Altotótárs scholarship and the jury prizes of PesText international literary festival. His newest book was freshly published at Jelenkor publishing, titled “kepler horoszkópírás közben letér a pályájáról” (“kepler looses his orbit while writing horoscope”).
https://www.instagram.com/andreferenc/

Orsolya Fenyvesi (1986) is an awarded Hungarian poet and translator living in Budapest. Her own poetry collections include The Animals in the Mirrors (2013) and Siege (2015), a book of experimental poetry and essays, The spectacle / Commentaries (2018) and Always in the Beginning (2022). Her book for children, AllMagicWood was also published in 2022. Her recent translations are Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red (2017, Magvető, Budapest) and poems from Anne Sexton’s Live or Die. Her poems have been translated into English, German, Serbian, Romanian and Turkish.
https://www.facebook.com/orsolya.fenyvesi

Mónika Ferencz was born in March 1991 in Budapest. She has been publishing poems in different journals since 2013, and since 2015 has also published translations. Her first volume of poetry, Hátam mögött dél, was published in spring 2017 wherewith she won the Junior Belletrist 2019 Award. Her second poetry book, Búvárkodás haladóknak, was published in 2021.
https://www.instagram.com/ferenczm/

Anna Vados is a poet and psychologist based in Budapest. She was born in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, in 1993. Her first collection of poetry won the Petri György prize in 2021 and was published by Magveto Publishing in 2022. She represented Hungary at the European Poetry Festival 2021 in London.
www.vadosanna.home.blog
www.facebook.com/lartcestuncombat

Ádám Vajna, born in 1994, is a Hungarian poet. His first poetry collection, Oda (There), came out in 2018 and has received the Makói Medáliák Prize for the best debut. He published his second poetry collection egyébként is, mit akarhatott itt az őrgróf? (So, What Did the Marquis Actually Want?) in 2022. He is currently working on a verse novel about a 19th Century New Zealand ornithologist, for which he was awarded the Mastercard Literary Scholarship. He translates from Norwegian and works as an editor for several literary magazines. He is also pursuing a PhD in Literature, focusing on contemporary Norwegian and Hungarian political poetry.
https://www.facebook.com/vajnaadam
https://www.instagram.com/vajnaadam

Szilveszter Veszprémi, poet, blogger, community organiser, published his first book of poems in 2022 under the title Helyek, ahol öröm vár, published by Prae. Born in Pécs, living in Szeged since 2015, graduated in 2022 with a Master’s degree in Applied Literature, since then community organiser at Megálló Közösségi Ház in Szeged. He genuinely believes that literature and community organizing would be unthinkable without each other: he has been a member of the Törzsasztal Műhely since its inception, which is now a platform for many young urban literary initiatives, he is one of the founding bloggers of the Eközben Szegeden blog, whose texts are now published on szeged.hu, and he is the moderator of the A jövő olvasóköre, where they meet monthly to discuss the importance of ecological awareness in the context of entertaining literary readings. He is now working on his second book, in which he wants to give voice to the figures of the Roma fairy tale tradition by giving them their own voices through poetic situations.
https://www.facebook.com/veszpremi.sziszi

András Toroczkay: ‘I was born in 1981 october 16th. I’ve graduated at PPKE-BTK. I majored at Hungarian literature and Communication. In 2006 I won „Arany Vitorla” award of the site called „Dokk Irodalmi Kikötő”. My first collection of poems was called Napfényvesztés (Loosing the sunlight, published by Magyar Napló). It was marketed in 2010. It followed Búcsú Éhestől (Farewell to Hungry, published by Magvető) a collection of short stories in the spring of 2015. After that a couple of month later was published the second collection of poems. It was called A labirintusból haza (Home from the Labyrinth). It was selected on the short list of the Horváth Péter literature award. My first novel – called Boldog emberek (Happy people) – was published in 2021 by the Magvető. It was voted on the list Best 50 books of 2021. Könyves Magazin ranked it #26. My most recent book is a collection of short stories and it’s called Mondd, hogy nem bolondultam meg (Tell me I’m not insane, published by Fisz). Readers can find my works (poems, short stories, children tales) regularly in literature magazines, anthologies, and elsewhere. I also write bookreviews to the weekly magazines (Magyar Narancs, 168Óra, etc.). My major interests are the perception of time and reality.’
https://www.facebook.com/toroczkay.andras

Ágota Katona was born in Balassagyarmat in 1989 and graduated from the Aesthetics-Hungarian Department of Eötvös Loránd University. Between 2010 and 2017, she was the editor of FÉLOnline cultural magazine. In 2017 she won a special prize at the poetry translation competition of the Hungarian National Library of Foreign Languages. Her first volume: Kezdetben, mégis vihar, 2021, Fiatal Írók Szövetsége.
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetryofcollage/

József Keresztesi (1970) poet, critic, editor. From 2001 to 2007 he worked as an editor of the literary journal Jelenkor, later he was a freelancer, now he is an editor of a publishing house. He was awarded the Déry Prize in 2008 and the Péter Balassa Prize in 2012 for his essays and studies. His book Csücsök won the Children’s Book of the Year Award in 2019 and was included in The White Ravens List. Three of his plays and four of his puppet theatre pieces have been set on stage. He is a member and the lyricist of the musical group Új Anya (New Mother). He lives in Pécs.

Books: Hamisopera (Fake Opera, reviews, 2007), A Karácsondi út (Karácsond Road, lyrics, 2009), Rubin Szilárd – pályarajz (Szilárd Rubin – a monography, 2012), Anabázis (Anabasis, essays and reviews, 2013), Mit eszik a micsoda? (What’s Eating the What? children’s poems, 2015), Meteorkövek (Meteor Stones, essays, 2018), Csücsök, avagy a nagy pudinghajsza (Csücsök, or the Big Pudding-chase, romance for children, 2019), Inverz Ophelia (Inverse Ophelia, poems, 2019)

Miklós Borsik (1986) is a poet and editor, lives in Budapest. Since 2012 he has been a doctoral student at Eötvös Loránd University (literary sciences). He exhibited his drawings under the title Vonalmérgezés (‘Line Poisoning’) in 2014. Between 2014 and 2018 he edited the volume series of the József Attila Kör literary association with Ágnes Balajthy. His book of poems, titled Átoknaptár (‘Calendar of Curses’), will be published in 2020 at Jelenkor Publishing. In 2021 he won the József Attila Literary Grant from Ferencváros.
https://www.instagram.com/miklos__b/