Magyarázni (pronounced MAUDE-yar-az-knee) is an attempt to ‘teach’ the reader Hungarian, and is constructed as an abecedarian, with a pronunciation guide at the beginning, a word for each letter of the Hungarian alphabet which is ‘explained’ by the poem, and finally a set of learning activities that functions as a conclusion. The work is utterly useless if the reader’s goal is to learn Hungarian. Instead, the poems attempt to convey the feeling and experience of growing up with a parent who came...
