 |
| Endre Farkas photo by DHFoto |
|
Brief Biography
Endre Farkas was born in Hungary. He escaped during the 1956 Hungarian uprising, and settled in Montreal. He has published eleven books of poetry and plays. His work has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Slovenian and Turkish. He has read and performed widely in Canada, the United States, Latin America, and Europe, and has created pieces that have toured across the country and abroad.
He is the two-time regional winner of the CBC Poetry “Face Off” Competition. His play, Haunted House, based on the life and work of the poet A.M. Klein, was produced in Montreal in February 2009.
He taught literature and creative writing at John Abbott College for over thirty years and has given workshops to adults, elementary and high school students.
For Readings, Performances and Lectures contact:
poet3@endrefarkas.com
Books:
Quotidian Fever: Selected Poems 1974-2007 2007
Promecards from Chile 2006
In The Worshipful Company of Skinners 2003
Surviving Words 1994
(Translated into French and Spanish)
Howl Too Eh?? 1992
(with Ken Norris)
How To 1988
(nominated for the QSPELL AM Klein Poetry Prize)
From Here to Here 1982
Face‑Off 1980
Romantic at Heart & Other Faults 1979
Murders in the Welcome Café 1977
Szerbusz 1974
Plays:
The Haunted House 2008
Voices 2002
Why is this Night Different? 2001
Surviving Wor(l)ds, 1999
(Nominated for best new play by Montreal Critics and among top ten spoken word performances in Montreal.)
Poetry Performances:
Dear Diary: 2005
(Adaptation of Turkish political prisoners’ diaries for 2 performers.)
ProemCards from Chile: 2004
(Solo)
I Love You/Je t'aime: 2003
(Text and movement for 3 voices)
Murders In The Welcome Café: 1983
(Text & movement for 2 performers.)
A Minute to Go: 1983
(text and movement for 3 performers.)
An Evening in the Muses' Company: 1982
(text and movement for 3 performers.)
Close Up: 1979
(a collaboration with composer Ted Dawson)
Drummer Boy Raga: 1976
(a collaborative 7 voice text creation.)
Comissioned work:
Blood is Blood: 2007
(co-written for two for CBC with Carolyn Marie Souaid.)
O!O!O!OH! Canada: 2007
(Winner of CBC poetry competition. Available on CD)
Homo Ludens/Playful Humans: 2005
(Winner of CBC poetry competition. Available on CD)
Love in Quebec: 2003
(for CBC.)
Radio Love: 2000
(for CBC with Ruth Taylor.)
Face‑Off /Mise Au jeu: 1980
(text and choreography for CATPOTO)
Sound Bodies: 1979
(text and choreography for FULCRUM)
It Runs in the Family: 1978
(text and choreography for poet and two dancers.)
Poems & Books translated into
French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian & Turkish.
Readings & Performances:
Canada, USA, Europe and South America.
Editor of Anthologies
Montreal English Poetry of the Seventies,
The Other Language,
Quebec Suite
Passport.
Freedom
Include in the following Anthologies
Canto a un Prisionero
Anaconda,
Poetry Australia,
Canadian Poetry Now,
Voix-Off,
CrossCut,
10 Montreal Poets at the Cegeps,
Administrative Work
One of the founding Editors of Vehicule Press
One of the founders of QSPELL
(Quebec Society for the Promotion of English Language Literature).
One of the founders of QWF
(The Quebec Writers Federation).
President of Quebec English Language Publishers,
Coproducer of Sounds Like:
(an album of spoken word with Ken Norris.)
Coproducer of Poesie en Mouvement/Poetry in Motion:
(poems on the buses project with Carolyn Marie Souaid.)
Producer of Cabaret Vehicule:
(An evening of performance poetry at Place des Arts sponsored by the Musee d’art contemporaine de Quebec.)
Coproducer of Circus of Words/Cirque des mots with Carolyn Marie Souaid.
Quotidian Fever: Selected Poems
1974-2007
In the Worshipful Company of Skinners
Poetry, 2003, The Muses' Company, 90 pages, paperISBN0-920486-51-7
$15.00
Inspired by Jean Steibruck's birchbark journal. Steinbruck was a fur trader who kept a journal and one which I happened to come across and one which set me off to find out more about him The poems were a result of reading different fur traders journals. I then created a character who comes to Canada as a child of 13 as an apprentice to the Hudson Bay Company and works his way across the country and time. It is an exploration of the early days of Canada, and the various attitudes and interactions between English, French, Metis, Natives and the land that was dubbed "quelques arpents de neige" by Voltaire. It is also an investigation into what is, if there is one, of the creation myth of Canada from the European perspective.
Surviving Words
Poetry, 1994, The Muses' Company, 106 pages, paper
ISBN0-919754-49-X
$20.00
This is a book of poems in three parts. Part One is based on my parents and other family members' Holocaust experiences. Part Two is based on my and my family's experiences during the 1956 Hungarian uprising and Part Three on the contemporary genocidal and other social & political events and environment.
Les Mots Qui Survivent
Poesie, Traduction de Surviving Words par Marie Evangeline Arsenault, Ecrites des Forges, 127 pages, paper
ISBN2-89046-549-7
$15.00
Palabras Sobrevivientes
Poetry, 2002, Poetas.com, 120 pages
Translation of Surviving Words into Castellano by Elias Letelier
ISBN 1-894879-02-3
$15.00
Surviving Wor(l)ds
Drama, 1999, Scirocco Press, 56pages, paper
$10.00
This is an adaptation of Surviving Words, a book of poems, into a play. It is based on my parents' Holocaust experiences and my own anti-semitic experiences during the 1956 uprising in Hungary. It deals with the theme of the struggle between The Will to Order and the The Will to Life.
How To
Poetry, 1988, The Muses' Company, 72 pages, paper
ISBN 0919754-11-2
$20.00
Limited amount left of 500 print run.
Shortlisted for the Quebec writers' federation poetry award. Didn't win but, of course, it should have. The poems explore the changes, renovations, personal, familial and poetic.
Romantic at Heart & Other Faults
Poetry, 1979, CrossCountry Press, 68 pages, paper
ISBN0-916696-11-1
$25.00
Limited number left from a run of 500.
The title states the themes of these poems: romance, love and faults. Sometimes/often in the same poem.
From Here to Here
Collages by Carole Beaulieu
Poetry, 1982, The Muses' Company, 24 pages, paper
$20.00
Limited amount left of 500 a series of poems written in Nelson B.C. experimenting with the prose/poem lines and narrative. Not all. One goes the other way—deconstructing to a single word.
Howl Too, Eh? And Other Satires
Poetry, 1991, NuAge Editions, 54 pages, paper
Co-written with Ken Norris
A collection of satires some of them based on poems by Allen Ginsberg, T.S. Elliot and Leonard Cohen.
