The rigor of beauty is his creative creed. His works range from Locomotiv GT to Iván Darvas, from Kati Kovács to Örs Szörényi, and from Képzelt Report to Atlanta, Georgia.
She was often identified as the “Girl with Pearly Hair”, as there was always something mysterious and ethereal behind her visible being. This is what the happy few who were once allowed to approach him also realize. Perhaps this is precisely why I combined the woman clothed with the sun from the Book of Revelation with the girl with the dreamy face from the song 30 years after I first met her.
The harmonious breathing of poetry, the free rhythm of the heart of music: this is Anna Adamis. The beautiful, delicate but strict thought that awakens the dawn and embraces that intangible that we call the interpenetration of night and day. Anna exists between these two in her pure, mysterious being, uniting them in herself.
Because creation, poetry, word and existence for Anna Adamis. And just as all time, place, reality and desire, past, present and future, in a person’s life have meaning, so for Anna there are no unnecessary words, exaggerations or empty chatter. Even in an interview, he does not tolerate clumsy sentences. He considers spoken words to be works of art if they take a visible and readable form. In him, passion and moderation entered into eternal peace.
Anna Adamis lives there in the conscious subconscious for generations. There are those who watch birds to learn from them “what the water of life tastes like,” and then realize that although they cannot bear it, what they are in is not as easy to get out of as it is to obtain. From bad shoes. There are those who cannot wait for the arrival of the tram that “will take you until the day after tomorrow.” How many of us have addressed our love this way: “You are to me like snow in winter / You are to me like words to silence.” And those who become inseparable experience it a thousand times: “I can think of anything/You say it first…” He gave us parables about the prodigal son and the pure-hearted gunsmith’s son, and we were able to think about that. Who are the terrible people, where do those ten thousand steps lead, and that’s why “Only a fool lives while he talks.”
This is all a modern Hungarian mantra. Meanwhile, the poet takes on different forms and destinies, but always remains intact. Yes, an idyll for me from the moment I wrote “I Knew a Girl for Omega”. From Locomotiv GT to Iván Darvas, from Kati Kovács to Örs Szörényi, from Képzelt Report to Atlanta, Georgia, in all its transformations. He is one of those who invalidate the rejection of the “Bernassian” poets who said that “light music is not poetry.” Today, there is no poetry more influential than lyricism, as has long been the case, and millions have loved the poetry written through the songs of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, or even Anna Adamis.
Anna leads us from the yard of ganjo and vinegar to America’s “Deep South,” untangling the “curly words” that live within us. We often think it would be nice if someone would “throw the needle back” into the record of our lives, so we can play something again, say it differently, or forgive.
Is it possible to express the connection between two people with a nobler simplicity: “My mother knows my father’s steps/ My father loved my mother’s years/ My father was a cloud in a clear sky/ My mother is a drop of rain on a wet meadow”/ This is how I became.
Anna Adamis is among us, tangible, but far from the filth of everyday life, from the Screaming Faces bar, where they beat a fake song into our brains, and from the meticulous people who live among us at all times, and whom we don’t even know where they will be in two minutes, until one day. Which, perhaps, will be endlessly destroyed in the foreseeable future. And with it, we angrily shout to the world: “How many bills is life?”
Just as he does not raise his warm, velvety voice in life, he does not need noise as a poet. It has long been known that it is not the flashy colors or the terrible decibels, but the sincere, authentic, multi-layered thoughts that we pay attention to even generations later. We hear his whispers and laughter, “even over the noise of the loudspeakers.”
When I was in his adopted home for the first time, for days I felt: I was dreaming, there was no way I could enter his fearfully guarded aura. Over the years, a special relationship of trust has developed between us. Every meeting with him was a creative process. When I had my first interview with him, it still bothered me that he paraphrased almost every sentence I wrote. Then I realized that talking to him is just raw material, which he formulates to the end in the same way as a painter or sculptor before presenting the work to the public.
“I’m always trying to find the essence. It’s stripped down to the roots. I weave ideas through myself,” he said in a 1996 interview.
When he worked for four years on the libretto for the opera by György Fokan, Atlanta, Georgia, he said about himself: “It is thought-provoking: the original accumulation of capital in conditions of the speed of light, in the midst of open or covert conflict.” “For power, so that someone can indulge in the refinement of the harmony of rhymes and quatrains.” But he also admitted that he neither liked nor tolerated established relationships for a long time nor since, but rather they were repulsed by interest associations. However, he was disappointed He had great hopes because, contrary to his expectations, after the regime change, no independent state patronage supporting true cultural values appeared in Hungary.
Anna still retains her wonderful freedom. When asked who he most wanted to be, he replied: “The iceberg that avoided the Titanic.”
It’s been a while since we’ve met Anna in person, but we’ve known each other all along, and we both enjoy the few words we exchange on the phone. I hope it will be like this as long as we live.
Who is the poet Anna Adamis really? Instead of stuttering clumsily, let your lines stop here at the end:
“When you came into my life,
You also look like a reflection in my eyes
As you come towards me with the sun
It also makes me reconcile with myself
You are beautiful,
You are beautiful”.
