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 Marton Koppany is a writer, translator and editor living in Budapest, Hungary. During the last few years he has been working on different collections of visual, conceptual, minimal etc. poetry, Fluxus documents and related essays. Some of the products and by-products of this activity can now be seen at the Institute of Broken and Reduced Languages, a subsite run together with Karl Young and hosted by Light and Dust. You can find there a small collection of his series as well.
Bibliography |
- Immortality and Freedom (Coracle Press 1991)
- The Other Side (Printed Matter, New York 1995)
- To Be Or To Be (Runaway Spoon 1996)
- It Is The Same (LVNG 1997)
- The Other Side (Kalligram 1999)
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What Others Say
The book's exactly apropos epigraph is from Isidore Ducasse: "The phenomenon passes, I seek the laws." Each of its poems takes place in a black-bordered rectangle. Nothing could be more formal and tidy. Nor loopier than what is investigated, which is not merely minimalist but (most of the time) wacko. For instance, just the words, or word, in cursive writing, "allofasuddenthesame." Bern Porter is one obvious precursor of this kind of thing, as are many of the earlier Dadaists. But Koppany has gone at least an important step beyond any of his influences, I think, for his works are more reflective, less arbitrary than theirs. They are also sequential, so that each frame of a given work draws from and enriches the other frames--and frames of other poems in the book.
—Bob Grumman
Koppány’s art is an art of the mind. He produces within us the ability to think, to conjecture. He identifies and then investigates the inexplicable realms of meaning and thought. The music of his poetry is not a music of the ear, but of the cerebrum. We feel ourselves pulled into a meditation upon the slightest scraps of meaning: a few words, a handful of numbers, a pattern of black on white.
—Geof Huth
Koppány's acute sense of the problems of language has moved him to try to get as close to the patterns of thought and perception as possible, and to create work that can be read by people who don't speak the language in which he writes, be it Hungarian or English. As a professional translator, he is well aware of the problems in shifting from one language to another, and, as far as I can determine, has created works in which nothing gets lost in translation. There's nothing trivial about seeking basic patterns, and there's nothing in any way trivial about trying to find poetic forms that go beyond the limitations of one language. Seeking to transcend the boundaries of local languages has been a goal of a number of 20th Century literary forms, Mail Art being the most expansive of them. Of the minimalists who have sought wider accessibility through their work, few have done as well as Koppány.
—Karl Young
In a few words: this is as good as minimalism gets -- simple and profound, humorous and gut-wrenchingly serious, language at perhaps its finest (pun intended).
—Crag Hill
These poems say more than poems can say. Last time I looked, it was a minute ago. Since then, I’m trying to direct traffic in my head, but that is not what is [required]. Reading is not this. Looking is more. Each poem looks back. Here is Koppány’s progeny that thinks back. Contagiously. Thus, instead of copying his name with one accent on each, I respectfully formulate the symbol anew with each event of typing each of those name words, out of respect. Why say minimalist? I would rather say Koppány. Márton. He is so awake that I may never have to sleep again. What looks simple is welcomely not. What looks clear never is enough. Language is a picture right where one needs for it [to need for it] to be. He teaches. Rinses. Flies. How many miles is Hungary from America? Choices are often false. A false containment offers the illusion that each thought might be contained. Koppány’s humor reminds me it is possible to go away awhile. And to retrieve what seems to have been there before one. Left.
—Sheila Murphy
"In a certain sense all my work is an investigation." (From "By Way of Introduction," the interview that prefaces the volume.) Márton Koppány's most important investigations are the ones into the forms (of cummunication) that will express the poetry that is inside him. These communicative forms (not stunts but expressions of feelings and of ideas) are not entirely verbal, for they ask us to see, but as though we could raise (or close) our eyes and behold, and contemplate, the concept! It seems to me Mr. Koppány's poetry, as instanced here, at least, is thoroughly conceptual. But as though to say, I want to put this concept into your mind! I want you to reflect upon this concept and its ramifications! These works are minimalist by design, but should we paraphrase the thought channeled therein, the effect would be encyclopedic, ranging through philosophy, psychology, politics, and the human emotions.
—Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino
The work of Márton Koppány is slipppery, in many senses of the word. Maybe most senses. Possibly all senses. Potentially all possible senses. I've already slipped and I'm only thirty words into it. That's what I mean.
Have you ever balanced an egg on its end at the equinox? That's how I picture the way Márton makes poems. If you've never done that, you may imagine you still understand my reference, but I assure you, you do not. It's in the fingertips.
I would not say "simple", I would say "elegant".
I've been puzzling over this for the better part of a week now, and I think the most accurate way I can explain to you how I read these poems is to say that when I read them I become aware that this is how I see the world.
—Dan Waber
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