Crickets are chirping / from under my container room / from the desert – this haiku is by Ferenc Bakos, who is considered the most famous Hungarian haiku poet abroad after Kosztolányi and Illyés. The writer, poet, and translator, who is graduating from the eighth grade and lives in Siófok-Kiliti, is also successful with his poems written in English. His life's work was included in the Somogy County Archives, and his work was recognized with the Somogy Citizens Award this year by the county assembly.

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He is not originally from Somogy, but has lived in the summer capital of Lake Balaton for over 50 years. He takes long walks every day, swims regularly, and of course reading and writing are his favorite pastimes. His favorite sport is tennis, which he himself once played, but his passion has not diminished, and he follows foreign matches with great interest.

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His first volume was published in 1975 under the title Csonttollú madarak tele, which was followed by more. He also wrote plays, and his stories were turned into radio plays. 

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The poet, who received the Zsigmond scholarship, has published in numerous journals and was a regular contributor to Somogy, which has published his haiku since 1982. In 1991, he became a founding member and the only Hungarian member of the Tokyo-based International Haiku Association, as he is one of the 100 most creative haiku poets in Europe. However, his haiku, which follow classical Japanese traditions, are uniquely marked by the Somogy landscape and Lake Balaton.

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Well, what kind of poetry form or genre is haiku, which many of our contemporary poets have chosen with great pleasure? Just think of Weöres, Pilinszky, Petri, Tibor Zalán, Zsuzsa Beney, József Utassy, ​​Ákos Fodor, Dezső Tandori, István Turczi or Attila Szepesi! Sándor Kányádi called his own haiku “nail poems” because of their brevity, and László Bertók, who was born in Vésé, called them “three-syllable poems”.

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It is also evident from the introduction to Bakos's volume entitled Desert Wind: Haiku means a humorous, unusual poem; like a pebble thrown into a still lake – into the reader's consciousness – it sets off subtle waves, evoking associations from the richness of memory. Instead of admiring the poet and the poem, it invites the reader to participate in the creation: the 3-line, 17-syllable poem close to nature can truly be "transformed" into a haiku.

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Judit Vihar, a literary historian, translator, retired college professor, and herself a well-known haiku author, wrote in one of her studies: “Just as Japanese paintings and ink drawings only show one or two brushstrokes, haiku can create a mood with just a few words. One word, one allusion was therefore enough to awaken associations in the reader. The miniature image, the poem, thus suggests an entire world in which

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"It contains life and death. The intention of the song is nothing more than to carve the passing moment in marble." Vihar also points out that haiku should be read twice; once to understand it, and then again to feel it.

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After graduating from the Budapest University of Technology, Ferenc Bakos came to Siófok as a high-current electrical engineer, and later, as a cathodic protection engineer, he toured the oil fields of Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and Libya. In his literary work, the desert is present in Hungarian literature as a new theme, a unique experience; the ancient culture of the Far East, the pulsating world of travel and arrival gave birth to the volume Sinbad, published 30 years ago, with which he sent Krúdy's hero out to sea again, who sets off on his journey of conquest with sails dotted with embroidered hearts.

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The Bakos family home was a well-known meeting place for artists from 1970 to 1995, a kind of “little Rome”, like Amerigo Tot’s studio apartment or Zsuzsa Szőnyi’s Triznya pub in the eternal city, where the richly laid table of Hungarian literature welcomed visitors. Among others, Péter Esterházy, Ervin Lázár, Zsuzsa Vathy, Ferenc Temesi, Péter Lengyel, Péter Korniss, András Miklós Sáros and György László Sáros visited their house in Siófok. The figure of Ferenc Bakos or his name appears in the works of several contemporary authors. For example, in the Rondo of Péter Lengyel’s writer friend: “And Bakos Feri is missing.” The working title of Ferenc Temesi’s dictionary novel Por was originally Porlód, which referred to Szeged, but “Papa Bakos” suggested the shorter form Por, which “Papa Temesi” accepted. “To Margó and Feri / – and Budapest is also / attached to Kiliti – / with love / Zsuzsa / September 1985” –

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This is what Zsuzsa Vathy wrote as a dedication to her collection of short stories entitled Éjjel a fűben, which she presented to the Bakos family, humorously alluding to the unresolved contrast between the capital and the countryside that still exists today. In his studies of the city history of Siófok, Tibor Tüskés mentions the name Bakos after the poet István Garai, who also wrote in Latin, in connection with the cultural life of the settlement, raising the poetic question: “can the city retain the intellectuals who have come here from elsewhere?”

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The master of haiku ponders the past in his study with a loggia overlooking his garden, while he rejuvenates himself decades later. His thoughts wander through Far Eastern landscapes, the wind blows sweet scents towards him, and the soothing music of the land of the rising sun rings in his ears. At such times, he takes out his haikus that are closest to his heart and writes new versions in a notebook specially designed for this purpose. A new volume is in the making…

 
"Respectable" haikus inspired by Lake Balaton
Ferenc Bakos, who published as a narrator under the name Péter Bakos, is a member of the generation of writers known as the “Péter Generation” that emerged around Géza Ottlik, who brought about a prose revolution in the 1970s. His role model at that time was István Örkény and his one-minute poems. His first haiku written in English was published in Japan in 1989. His power to create language, his outlook on life and the world are most evident in this text form, but at the same time he also incorporates it into world literature. His haikus are translated into various languages ​​worldwide. In the meantime, his Haiku trilogy, the Sivatagi szél anthology, has been published. His volume Desert Wind was published in 2015 by

overseas. The pinnacle of his translation work is his participation in the publication of the modern Japanese haiku anthology Hidden Lake as a co-author. He is the holder of several prestigious foreign awards, and several of his haiku have been awarded the “Honorable” classification. In 2000, at the international haiku competition in Kusamakura, his haiku inspired by Lake Balaton received this honorary title: sailboat / tied to a shining thread / with oxen saliva. In 2009, at the haiku competition of Ito En Tea Company, a Japanese company that sells green tea and tea products, his haiku written in English was among the top nine out of 13,000 applicants from 31 countries. The “Honorable” haiku has been read by millions of people on the packaging of the tea drink: autumn gloom – / hidden in my boots / lonely ladybug.

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Sinbad's wives
Ferenc Bakos recommends his book Sindbadia as follows: “Sindbadia: an island country. Haiku ships anchor on its eastern shores. In its varied landscapes, the dust-stormy desert lies at the foot of the Mátra. Its stagnant waters, when the natives are not bathing, are still. It has no money, but sometimes drachmas, dinars jingle, and red-bellied HUFs reb. In the only battle of its ancient and modern history that still continues, Kama shoots his arrows from the back of an elephant. In its evenings, a full moon shines, and at dawn, a cockerel crows. Its male population is numerous; all of them go by the name Sindbad. Our sent man, Hankó, occasionally visits its provinces. He usually arrives in a daze; his passport states the following in the occupation column: engineer, writer. (…) There are women too, of course – one might say: heroines – and from the nature of the matter "Therefore, all of them are Sinbad's wives, or at least his dear friends."

 

Alexander Lorincz

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