Cello's Tears – Symphonic Poems

Cello's Tears
122 Pages
ISBN 9781941416082

Cello’s Tears is a collection of eighty-three poems written over a span of forty years during Geza Tatrallyay’s nomadic life. He has lived in Hungary, Canada, the U.S.A., the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, France, Uruguay and Japan and traveled extensively throughout six continents (other than Antarctica). He is able to ‘get by’ in five languages and has been exposed to a few more. Thus, it is natural that Tatrallyay’s poems are an exploration of ‘translation’ in all its different forms and in the broadest sense, and it is this that gives the work such depth and variety. He works effortlessly to bring meaning and emotion from different languages and other art forms into his poems. Several in the collection capture emotions or thoughts experienced while hearing a piece of music or seeing a work of art in the words of a poem. He experiments with forms native to other cultures, for example, the Japanese haiku and tanka, where the sparse use of words within a strict structure points the reader in the direction of the emotion or thought, but allows him or her to complete the quest. Tatrallyay sees poetry as the most distilled form of creativity with words and language; thus, there are some poems where he alters, deconstructs or combines words to rely on their combined visual and aural sensuality to express a thought or feeling. No matter what cultural orientation you approach Cello’s Tears from, the poems that Tatrallyay shares in this collection will be sure to resonate since they all touch on some aspect of the human condition and the angst and beauty of existence.

Geza Tatrallyay

About Geza Tatrallyay (San Francisco, California Author)

Geza Tatrallyay

Born in Budapest, Hungary, Geza escaped with his family in 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution, immigrating to Canada the same year. He grew up in Toronto, attending The University of Toronto Schools, where he was School Captain. He graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Human Ecology in 1972, after taking a break in his studies to work as a host in the Ontario Pavilion at Expo’70 in Osaka, Japan. Geza was selected as a Rhodes Scholar from Ontario, attending Oxford University and graduating with a BA/MA in Human Sciences in 1974; he completed his studies with a MSc in Economics from London School of Economics and Politics in 1975. Geza represented Canada as an epée fencer in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.

Geza’s professional experience has included stints in government, international organizations, finance and environmental entrepreneurship. Since 2004, he has been managing a few investments mainly in the clean energy sector and acting on a few boards and investment committees, as well as devoting himself to his family and his writing. Geza is a citizen of Canada and Hungary and, a green card holder, currently divides his time between San Francisco, and Barnard, Vermont.

Geza is a prolific writer and has produced thrillers, memoirs and collections of poetry.