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Foamy Sky: The Major Poems of Miklos Radnoti
One of Hungary's leading poetic voices of the twentieth century, Midlos Radnoti (1909-1944) wrote some of his country's most cherished love poems and political verse even as he anticipated death under the Nazis. This English-only edition presents many of the poems that appear in his Foamy Sky volume and a selection of others dating back to 1929. A good portion of the poems were written during World War II, when Radnoti, of Jewish descent, was forced into a slave-labour squad and sent to work building roads in the Balkans. On the final march through Hungary toward Austria near the end of the war, the guards murdered the disabled prisoners who had not already died en route and buried the bodies in a mass grave. Radnoti's last poems were found in the pocket of his coat when his body was exhumed.
216 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1992
158 people want to read
About the author
Miklós Radnóti
75 books46 followersMiklós Radnóti, birth name Miklós Glatter, was a Hungarian poet who fell victim to the Holocaust.
Radnóti was born into an assimilated Jewish family. His life was considerably shaped by the fact that both his mother and his twin brother died at his birth. He refers to this trauma in the title of his compilation Ikrek hava ("Month of Gemini"/"Month of the Twins").
Though in his last years, Hungarian society rejected him as a Jew, in his poems he identifies himself very strongly as a Hungarian. His poetry mingles avant-garde and expressionist themes with a new classical style, a good example being his eclogues. His romantic love poetry is notable as well. Some of his early poetry was published in the short-lived periodical Haladás (Progress). His 1935 marriage to Fanni Gyarmati (born 1912) was exceptionally happy.
Radnóti converted to Catholicism in 1943. This was partly prompted by the persecution of the Hungarian Jews (from which converts to Christianity were initially exempted), but partly also with his long-standing fascination with Catholicism.
In the early forties, he was conscripted by the Hungarian Army, but being a Jew, he was assigned to an unarmed support battalion (munkaszolgálat) in the Ukrainian front. In May 1944, the defeated Hungarians retreated and Radnóti's labor battalion was assigned to the Bor, Serbia copper mines. In August 1944, as consequence of Tito's advance, Radnóti's group of 3,200 Hungarian Jews was force-marched to Central Hungary, which very few reached alive. Radnóti was fated not to be among them. Throughout these last months of his life, he continued to write poems in a little notebook he kept with him. According to witnesses, in early November 1944, Radnóti was severely beaten by a drunken militiaman, who had been tormenting him for "scribbling". Too weak to continue, he was shot into a mass grave near the village of Abda in Northwestern Hungary. Today, a statue next to the road commemorates his death on this spot.
Eighteen months later, his body was unearthed and in the front pocket of his overcoat the small notebook of his final poems was discovered (his body was later reinterred in Budapest's Kerepesi Cemetery). These final poems are lyrical and poignant and represent some of the few works of literature composed during the Holocaust that survived. Possibly his best known poem is the fourth stanza of the Razglednicák, where he describes the shooting of another man and then envisions his own death.
Radnóti was born into an assimilated Jewish family. His life was considerably shaped by the fact that both his mother and his twin brother died at his birth. He refers to this trauma in the title of his compilation Ikrek hava ("Month of Gemini"/"Month of the Twins").
Though in his last years, Hungarian society rejected him as a Jew, in his poems he identifies himself very strongly as a Hungarian. His poetry mingles avant-garde and expressionist themes with a new classical style, a good example being his eclogues. His romantic love poetry is notable as well. Some of his early poetry was published in the short-lived periodical Haladás (Progress). His 1935 marriage to Fanni Gyarmati (born 1912) was exceptionally happy.
Radnóti converted to Catholicism in 1943. This was partly prompted by the persecution of the Hungarian Jews (from which converts to Christianity were initially exempted), but partly also with his long-standing fascination with Catholicism.
In the early forties, he was conscripted by the Hungarian Army, but being a Jew, he was assigned to an unarmed support battalion (munkaszolgálat) in the Ukrainian front. In May 1944, the defeated Hungarians retreated and Radnóti's labor battalion was assigned to the Bor, Serbia copper mines. In August 1944, as consequence of Tito's advance, Radnóti's group of 3,200 Hungarian Jews was force-marched to Central Hungary, which very few reached alive. Radnóti was fated not to be among them. Throughout these last months of his life, he continued to write poems in a little notebook he kept with him. According to witnesses, in early November 1944, Radnóti was severely beaten by a drunken militiaman, who had been tormenting him for "scribbling". Too weak to continue, he was shot into a mass grave near the village of Abda in Northwestern Hungary. Today, a statue next to the road commemorates his death on this spot.
Eighteen months later, his body was unearthed and in the front pocket of his overcoat the small notebook of his final poems was discovered (his body was later reinterred in Budapest's Kerepesi Cemetery). These final poems are lyrical and poignant and represent some of the few works of literature composed during the Holocaust that survived. Possibly his best known poem is the fourth stanza of the Razglednicák, where he describes the shooting of another man and then envisions his own death.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 30, 2020
This book contained some stunningly beautiful and intensely powerful poems - Quiet Lines Bowed Head, War Diary, Twenty-Eight Years, Foamy Sky, I Hid You Away, Floral Song, A Vague Ode and Fragment were all great. But one stuck in my mind the most - the moving 'Letter to my Wife' (Below). Which was written in the mountains above Zagubica in 1944, just two months before Radnóti's death.
Beneath, the nether worlds, deep, still, and mute.
Silence howls in my ears, and I cry out.
No answer could come back, it is so far
from that sad Serbia swooned into war.
And you're so distant. But my heart redeems
your voice all day, entangled in my dreams.
So I am still, while close about me sough
the great cold ferns, that slowly stir and bow.
When I'll see you, I don't know. You whose calm
is as the weight and sureness of a psalm,
whose beauty's like the shadow and the light,
whom I could find if I were blind and mute,
hide in the landscape now, and from within
leap into my eye, as if cast by my brain.
You were real once; now you have fallen in
to that deep well of teenage dreams again.
Jealous interrogations: tell me; speak.
Do you still love me? will you on that peak
of my past youth become my future wife?
—But now I fall awake to real life
and know that's what you are: wife, friend of years,
—just far away. Beyond three wild frontiers.
And fall comes. Will it also leave with me?
Kisses are sharper in the memory.
Daylight and miracles seem different things.
Above, the echelons of bombers' wings:
skies once amazing blue with your eyes' glow
are darkened now. Tight with desire to blow,
the bombs must fall. I live in spite of these,
a prisoner. All of my fantasies
I measure out. And I will find you still;
for you I've walked the full length of the soul,
the highways of countries!—on coals of fire,
if needs must, in the falling of the pyre,
if all I have is magic, I'll come back;
I'll stick as fast as bark upon an oak!
And now that calm, whose habit is a power
and weapon to the savage, in the hour
of fate and danger, falls as cool and true
as does a wave: the sober two times two.
Beneath, the nether worlds, deep, still, and mute.
Silence howls in my ears, and I cry out.
No answer could come back, it is so far
from that sad Serbia swooned into war.
And you're so distant. But my heart redeems
your voice all day, entangled in my dreams.
So I am still, while close about me sough
the great cold ferns, that slowly stir and bow.
When I'll see you, I don't know. You whose calm
is as the weight and sureness of a psalm,
whose beauty's like the shadow and the light,
whom I could find if I were blind and mute,
hide in the landscape now, and from within
leap into my eye, as if cast by my brain.
You were real once; now you have fallen in
to that deep well of teenage dreams again.
Jealous interrogations: tell me; speak.
Do you still love me? will you on that peak
of my past youth become my future wife?
—But now I fall awake to real life
and know that's what you are: wife, friend of years,
—just far away. Beyond three wild frontiers.
And fall comes. Will it also leave with me?
Kisses are sharper in the memory.
Daylight and miracles seem different things.
Above, the echelons of bombers' wings:
skies once amazing blue with your eyes' glow
are darkened now. Tight with desire to blow,
the bombs must fall. I live in spite of these,
a prisoner. All of my fantasies
I measure out. And I will find you still;
for you I've walked the full length of the soul,
the highways of countries!—on coals of fire,
if needs must, in the falling of the pyre,
if all I have is magic, I'll come back;
I'll stick as fast as bark upon an oak!
And now that calm, whose habit is a power
and weapon to the savage, in the hour
of fate and danger, falls as cool and true
as does a wave: the sober two times two.
April 24, 2017
These are soul-crushing and beautiful poems. The early tragedy of Radnóti's life informs the darkness of his early poems - a darkness that prophecies the later and greater tragedy that would take his life, and the lives of so many others. The translations in this volume are top-notch. I highly recommend this to anybody interested in 20th century poetry.
Now, the rest of my thoughts are best expressed by excerpts and a little commentary, so if you don't want "spoilers," it's best to stop reading here.
These are almost certainly the darkest poems I've read. In an early poem, "War Diary," written from 1935 to 1936, Radnóti prophecies:
What is there left to say? Winter comes, and war comes;
I will lie broken, out of sight of men,
in the mouth and in the eye the wormed earth will lie,
roots will transfix my body then.
This is, of course, eerily accurate. He displays a keen awareness of nature, as well, similarly to many modern poets, but he views nature through a very different lens from that of most poets. In the final stanza of "War Diary," he writes (of a squirrel):
And now with him too this fleeting peace has fled;
all through the fields the worms beslither the ground,
gnawing and gnawing away without a sound
the endless rows of dead.
Pessimism pervades Radnóti's poems. In "The First Eclogue," the poet says:
I'm not even sad any more, I'm inured to this horrible world, so
much so that sometimes it hurts not at all, - but still it disgusts me.
From "Thursday" (a very unassuming title):
Can he give voice before the infinite,
an exile, chained amid the strife,
at the road's end, a man, finite,
can he give voice to life? -
when blood runs from the lamb's white teeth,
when raw flesh feeds the snow-white turtledove,
when snakes hiss on the road beneath,
and the mad wind howls above.
From "Maying," speaking of young boys:
with tiny victories their bodies thrill;
just as dispassionately they could kill.
However, despite this awareness of the evils of the world, Radnóti ultimately expresses a hope for the future. From a late poem, "I Know Not What...":
and one day it will brighten, hid now in safety's dark,
till peace shall write upon our land its shining mark
and answer our choked words in sentences of light.
With great wings cover us, O guardian cloud of night.
And lastly, in one of his very final poems, "The Eighth Eclogue," the poet says,
Just as the pebble is ground to a round by the rush of a river
so am I worn out already, in even so flitting a lifetime.
To which the prophet replies,
So thou believest. But I have considered thy poems: thy venom
keepeth thee whole. The wrath of prophets and poets is kindred,
food for the people, and drink!
And later in the same speech, the prophet says,
even now that Kingdom groaneth in its birth-pains.
There is not much more that I can think about this collection, let alone say.
Now, the rest of my thoughts are best expressed by excerpts and a little commentary, so if you don't want "spoilers," it's best to stop reading here.
These are almost certainly the darkest poems I've read. In an early poem, "War Diary," written from 1935 to 1936, Radnóti prophecies:
What is there left to say? Winter comes, and war comes;
I will lie broken, out of sight of men,
in the mouth and in the eye the wormed earth will lie,
roots will transfix my body then.
This is, of course, eerily accurate. He displays a keen awareness of nature, as well, similarly to many modern poets, but he views nature through a very different lens from that of most poets. In the final stanza of "War Diary," he writes (of a squirrel):
And now with him too this fleeting peace has fled;
all through the fields the worms beslither the ground,
gnawing and gnawing away without a sound
the endless rows of dead.
Pessimism pervades Radnóti's poems. In "The First Eclogue," the poet says:
I'm not even sad any more, I'm inured to this horrible world, so
much so that sometimes it hurts not at all, - but still it disgusts me.
From "Thursday" (a very unassuming title):
Can he give voice before the infinite,
an exile, chained amid the strife,
at the road's end, a man, finite,
can he give voice to life? -
when blood runs from the lamb's white teeth,
when raw flesh feeds the snow-white turtledove,
when snakes hiss on the road beneath,
and the mad wind howls above.
From "Maying," speaking of young boys:
with tiny victories their bodies thrill;
just as dispassionately they could kill.
However, despite this awareness of the evils of the world, Radnóti ultimately expresses a hope for the future. From a late poem, "I Know Not What...":
and one day it will brighten, hid now in safety's dark,
till peace shall write upon our land its shining mark
and answer our choked words in sentences of light.
With great wings cover us, O guardian cloud of night.
And lastly, in one of his very final poems, "The Eighth Eclogue," the poet says,
Just as the pebble is ground to a round by the rush of a river
so am I worn out already, in even so flitting a lifetime.
To which the prophet replies,
So thou believest. But I have considered thy poems: thy venom
keepeth thee whole. The wrath of prophets and poets is kindred,
food for the people, and drink!
And later in the same speech, the prophet says,
even now that Kingdom groaneth in its birth-pains.
There is not much more that I can think about this collection, let alone say.
April 13, 2019
"The boys crouch, amberizing in the glow, whisper sweet nothings quite malapropos; with tiny victories their bodies thrill; just as dispassionately they could kill.
But still they could be human."
So wrote Miklós Radnóti less than a year before he was deported into slave labor, worked to the point of collapse and then shot dead in a swamp. In an earlier poem he writes, "That up there scurying time is ransacking my poems, that down, down, down, my mortal heaviness must drive; all this I knew," before begging: "But tell me - did the work survive?"
This clash of hope and despair and pastoral beauty and mud runs throughout this collection. As mentioned in the forward he had, or seemed to have, an unsettling knowledge of how everything would eventually end and that cuts through even the earlier poems. The most devastating, though, are the ten he wrote while a slave laborer, which were found on his body after he died. Amazing they survived and an amazing window into what he went through.
I have some questions about the translation choices made with regard to sacrificing meaning for meter but clearly the translators have spent way more time thinking about this than I have so never mind.
Also I love this bilingual edition, even if I can't read Hungarian. More translated collections should be published this way!
But still they could be human."
So wrote Miklós Radnóti less than a year before he was deported into slave labor, worked to the point of collapse and then shot dead in a swamp. In an earlier poem he writes, "That up there scurying time is ransacking my poems, that down, down, down, my mortal heaviness must drive; all this I knew," before begging: "But tell me - did the work survive?"
This clash of hope and despair and pastoral beauty and mud runs throughout this collection. As mentioned in the forward he had, or seemed to have, an unsettling knowledge of how everything would eventually end and that cuts through even the earlier poems. The most devastating, though, are the ten he wrote while a slave laborer, which were found on his body after he died. Amazing they survived and an amazing window into what he went through.
I have some questions about the translation choices made with regard to sacrificing meaning for meter but clearly the translators have spent way more time thinking about this than I have so never mind.
Also I love this bilingual edition, even if I can't read Hungarian. More translated collections should be published this way!
January 28, 2020
The short life of Miklós Radnóti was bookended by tragedy, and in the years between he wrote some of the most hauntingly beautiful – if morose – poetry of the twentieth century. The event of his birth was marked by the death of both his mother and his twin, and he died in northwestern Hungary on the route of a forced march from the copper mine in Serbia where he labored toward a Nazi concentration camp that he never reached.
One might say of these bookends to a life that only the former event, his traumatic birth, could have left a mark on his poetry, and you’d probably be right. As a rational skeptic, I’m not a big believer in precognition. However, some of Radnóti’s poetry (e.g. “Just Walk On, Condemned to Die” / “Járkálj csak, halálraítélt!” [written eight years before his death, before the War began]) is as potent an argument for prevision as exists. Yes, it’s probably true that if one writes as much about death as did Radnóti, one is bound to seem prescient about one’s own death, but when one’s words are magic enough to make a skeptic consider the possibility, that’s a powerful testament.
The book contains about eighty poems. I could talk about a selection from across the collection that are among my personal favorites, but they are all great works. The more meaningful distinction to point out is that the last ten poems in the book (four of which are collectively labeled as “Razglednicas”) are Radnóti’s final ten poems and they arose from a grave, having been buried in his coat pocket. When his body was exhumed, the poems were discovered written in an address book in his pocket.
As the poems were all written in Hungarian, the natural question is how good is the translation. After all, poetry translation is a bit like trying to put a queen-size sheet on a king-size mattress (where the corners are: metering / arrangement, sound (e.g. rhyme, alliteration, etc.), imagery, and emotional content / message.) The more that one insists on perfectly capturing one corner, the more the other ends of the sheet curl up. Getting the sheet to hold on each corner takes skill and selective compromise. I think the duo of translators from the University of Texas, Dallas did a tremendous job. The team included one person with expertise in Hungarian, English, and translation, Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, and one with expertise in poetry and poetic form, Frederick Turner. Both of these individuals contributed some prose to the book, Ozsváth wrote the Introduction and Turner offered a Translator’s Epilogue. The latter presents some insight into how the two went about trying to achieve the best translation possible. Meter and rhyme schemes were not sacrificed as they often might be in a modern translation.
One nice feature of the Corvina edition of this book is that it is bilingual with the English on the page opposed the original Hungarian. My (almost non-existent) Hungarian is far too sparse for the task of reading poetry. However, I was able to take in at least the sound quality of Radnóti’s original, and given that he wrote in metered verse, this is not inconsequential.
This is a fantastic collection and I would recommend it for all poetry readers – even if you can only read the English editions, you’ll be moved by these poems.
One might say of these bookends to a life that only the former event, his traumatic birth, could have left a mark on his poetry, and you’d probably be right. As a rational skeptic, I’m not a big believer in precognition. However, some of Radnóti’s poetry (e.g. “Just Walk On, Condemned to Die” / “Járkálj csak, halálraítélt!” [written eight years before his death, before the War began]) is as potent an argument for prevision as exists. Yes, it’s probably true that if one writes as much about death as did Radnóti, one is bound to seem prescient about one’s own death, but when one’s words are magic enough to make a skeptic consider the possibility, that’s a powerful testament.
The book contains about eighty poems. I could talk about a selection from across the collection that are among my personal favorites, but they are all great works. The more meaningful distinction to point out is that the last ten poems in the book (four of which are collectively labeled as “Razglednicas”) are Radnóti’s final ten poems and they arose from a grave, having been buried in his coat pocket. When his body was exhumed, the poems were discovered written in an address book in his pocket.
As the poems were all written in Hungarian, the natural question is how good is the translation. After all, poetry translation is a bit like trying to put a queen-size sheet on a king-size mattress (where the corners are: metering / arrangement, sound (e.g. rhyme, alliteration, etc.), imagery, and emotional content / message.) The more that one insists on perfectly capturing one corner, the more the other ends of the sheet curl up. Getting the sheet to hold on each corner takes skill and selective compromise. I think the duo of translators from the University of Texas, Dallas did a tremendous job. The team included one person with expertise in Hungarian, English, and translation, Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, and one with expertise in poetry and poetic form, Frederick Turner. Both of these individuals contributed some prose to the book, Ozsváth wrote the Introduction and Turner offered a Translator’s Epilogue. The latter presents some insight into how the two went about trying to achieve the best translation possible. Meter and rhyme schemes were not sacrificed as they often might be in a modern translation.
One nice feature of the Corvina edition of this book is that it is bilingual with the English on the page opposed the original Hungarian. My (almost non-existent) Hungarian is far too sparse for the task of reading poetry. However, I was able to take in at least the sound quality of Radnóti’s original, and given that he wrote in metered verse, this is not inconsequential.
This is a fantastic collection and I would recommend it for all poetry readers – even if you can only read the English editions, you’ll be moved by these poems.
March 30, 2008
Radnoti Miklos wrote most of these poems while being held by the Nazis in Hungary during WWII. The begin full of his family, nature, and life and transform into his wife, despair and horrors that have only been felt by the Nazis. Hidden in the lining of his coat they were published after being found in a mass grave where Radnoti had been buried with his fellow captives. The story is influential on the words, but even without it, the words are powerful enough. One of my favorite Hungarian poets, my preferred nationality of poetry.
November 20, 2023
Seldom do I write reviews on books, but this one... If you read it without reading the original Hungarian poems, it is a decent book. Often very childish, and it feels like the translators make the wrong decision with many of the poems when they try to adhere to a more rigid form or keep the respective poem rhyming. Much of these attempts turn out to be childish. The selection of words and the inconsistent and insecure handling of forms often result in the translations veering off from the original in their tone. (Look at for instance to "I know not what". The title already sounds awkward, and anticipates a completely different voice than that of the actual poem.) With all its technical problems, it could still have been a somewhat decent and harmless selection of poems. However, if you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be able to compare it to the originals, all the above problems, and many more, are put it higher relief. Glaring inconsistencies are ubiquitous. Some of them raising the question whether the translators themselves comprehended some phrases and nuanced of the source language. Many opportunities missed, many words, lines and whole stanzas ruined, perhaps one day I'll write a somewhat more exhaustive review of this piece.
Until then, I discourage anyone from reading this edition of Radnoti's poems, instead, look at the much better book, Clouded Sky, translated by Marks and Polgar. It's a much better book, with poems accomplished both as self-sustaining pieces of poetry and as translations.
Until then, I discourage anyone from reading this edition of Radnoti's poems, instead, look at the much better book, Clouded Sky, translated by Marks and Polgar. It's a much better book, with poems accomplished both as self-sustaining pieces of poetry and as translations.
February 18, 2025
9/10
Radnoti Miklos was a Hungarian poet who was murdered in 1944 during the holocaust. This collection of poems spans from the late 1920s to just before his death in November of '44.
Simply put these poems are poignant and carry a weight to them that I haven't felt before when reading poems. It is truly a wonder how Radnoti was able to predict his own death in some of his poems. His love for his wife, Fanni, is aparent throughout.
Radnoti Miklos was a Hungarian poet who was murdered in 1944 during the holocaust. This collection of poems spans from the late 1920s to just before his death in November of '44.
Simply put these poems are poignant and carry a weight to them that I haven't felt before when reading poems. It is truly a wonder how Radnoti was able to predict his own death in some of his poems. His love for his wife, Fanni, is aparent throughout.
August 12, 2017
This is some of the most stunning poetry I've ever read; the poet uses poetic structures and forms to amazing effect. His last ten poems were found on his person after he was shot on a death march in 1944. Haunting.
August 31, 2020
one of my best friends gave me this book as a gift the last time we met in budapest, started reading it on the plane but actually never continued it, after years i finally grab it again and im so glad i did, im taking some of those poems with me forever, i love my friend.
January 18, 2020
A fantastic and moving collection.
Read
December 29, 2024Suomenkielinen kokoelma, jota ei täältä löydy
June 30, 2025
A poet haunted by the twentieth century.
December 31, 2025
5
His final poems are works of witness and of art at its very finest
His final poems are works of witness and of art at its very finest
August 31, 2020
one of my best friends gave this book to me years ago as a present last time we met in Budapest i until now i didn't give myself the chance to enjoy it, and thank god i decided to open it again, im taking some of these poems with me, i love my friend.
May 16, 2020
Incredible poems, particularly the later ones. Direct clear utterance from a man who did not wither under the horror. Total absence of posturing and bullcrap. Shows why writing matters.
The English translations are very skilled.
The English translations are very skilled.
April 1, 2016
Absolutely beautiful. At times Radnoti can be so unbelievably romantic. At others, he has an eerie foresight into the future of what happened to him and those around him. His lyrical composition is both beautiful and haunting and many of his poems deserve multiple reads. My favorite was "In Your Arms" which was written for his wife who survived him. Radnoti is truly a Hungarian gem.
March 23, 2016
Radnoti, a victim of the Holocaust, wrote beautiful and haunting poetry that covered everything from love to politics to death. His poetry reads more like traditional poetry that post-modern. I very much recommend this title to Holocaust history buffs and poetry lovers.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews