Always Different

The poems in Jeneis collection Always Different: Poems of Memory grapple with childhood, memory, and time. The poet looks back forty years and imagines himself as a boythe narrator of the poemslooking forward into the future. Thus the poems combine moments with sweeps of time, village scenes with rumblings of societal and technological change. In the tradition of Hungarian writers Pter Ndas and gota Kristf, Jenei grapples with war and destruction, loneliness, desire, and loss. The literary historian va Bnki calls Jenei one of the great masters of Hungarian free verseadding that his poems also hold an epic theme, the strange underworld of the Kdr era, rural Hungary shown through a childs eye. Through their storytelling, searching, and rhythms, these poems take us into our communal yet private longing for self-knowledge, history, and home.