interview by Dean Hill | words by Heidi Kewin
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and flow, but the speaker’s original phrasing and use of English have been preserved as much as possible in order to retain the authenticity and character of his voice. Róbert is a non-native English speaker, and his expressions reflect that perspective.
Szombathely is a town located near the Austrian-Hungarian border, and is also the place of poet and journalist Róbert Nagy. It’s a place more than 2000 years old, founded by the Romans in 43 AD, and one that continues to shape Róbert’s way of seeing the world around him. A journalist by profession and a poet by practice, Róbert brings a careful attention to detail in anything he writes.
“I just simply love writing, so that’s why I wanted to be a journalist and later in 2017 I become an artist too. I have a friend and he saw my first poem and said it was good enough, and he helped me at the start. It was an easy decision, but it is never easy to write a poem.”
Since then, poetry has become a space where Róbert can bring together what he observes in the world with what he experiences internally. His poems often place reflective, intellectual ideas next to moments of vulnerability, physical experience, or quiet emotional weight. The contrast isn’t something he forces. It’s a habit shaped by his journalism background.
“As a journalist, I have to look at all sides of a story. I try to see everything that’s around me and find the balance between the double-sided things.”
One example of that balance appears in his poem Idols, which begins in a kitchen. A bread recipe has gone wrong, but the scene opens into something more ambiguous and layered.
D: THIS IS THE STAGE FOR A POWERFUL AND ALMOST SPIRITUAL MOMENT INVOLVING ANGEL WINGS AND LUST. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE SUCH AN ORDINARY AND FLAWED SPACE FOR THAT PROFOUND EXPERIENCE TO HAPPEN? IS THERE A RATIONALE BEHIND WHY YOU CHOSE THAT PARTICULAR SETTING?
“Bread is one of the simplest recipes in life, but it isn’t easy to make it. You can fail many many times or in many many ways. And the kitchen is the place where relationships come together. We cannot see that a relationship is easy or [one-sided]. It’s good and bad at the same time, and we can only decide at the end if it was good or bad. I tried to make something that is familiar to everybody – almost all people eat bread – so it’s much easier to see and connect to and follow the poem.”
This interest in the ‘real’ carries throughout Róbert’s work. While his language is poetic and image-driven, his subject matter is grounded in daily life. In Parallel Strips of Flame, a poem rooted in time and distance, Róbert drew inspiration from the manipulated photographic work of Hungarian artist Antal Buzás.
D: IT SORT OF SUGGESTS THAT THERE ARE TWO ENTITIES MOVING ALONGSIDE EACH OTHER AND IT ENDS WITH THE IMAGE OF THESE TWO PARALLEL GLANCES. SO THE QUESTION I WANT TO ASK IS: HOW DOES YOUR CENTRAL METAPHOR OF EXPERIENCE WRINKLING THE FABRIC OF THE SOUL FIT WITHIN THIS IDEA OF A CONNECTION THAT IS DEEPLY FELT, YET REMAINS SEPARATE?
“This poem was a bit of cheating because it was inspired by Antal Buzás’ works. He is a painter, a graphician, and he has a special method that he takes his photos and plays with the lights afterwards. It is manipulating what we see, so in the end it becomes something extraordinary. It can be non-figurative; it can be anything, but it has some points where we can see the real picture. This made me write the poem. I felt that we can travel not just in time but in the light too. That’s why it becomes the ‘parallel strips of flame’ – it’s a reference to Back to the Future. We can be everything there and we can be nothing – human life is not endless.”
Róbert doesn’t rely on a single source of influence.
D: SO, YOU GET YOUR IDEAS AND INFLUENCES FROM THE EVERYDAY, LIVED EXPERIENCES OF WHEN YOU’RE OUT AND ABOUT OR WHEN YOU’RE READING, OR WHEN YOU’RE WATCHING FILMS AND GOING THROUGH YOUR EXISTENCE.
“I try to put myself into these poems. I don’t want to lie in the poems. I want to show that world that I see, or the ordinary things, everyday life, love, community, and everything else.”
But of course, this can open up a conversation about chaos.
D: HAVE YOU, THROUGHOUT YOUR JOURNEY AS A POET, FACED ANY OTHER CHALLENGES? HAVE YOU FACED AN OBSTACLE OR A CHALLENGE WHICH YOU HAVE HAD TO OVERCOME IN ORDER TO BECOME A BETTER POET?
“It is always a challenge. I always try to get more experience, and I try to write better – sometimes shorter – because I can overthink things a lot. Most of the time, the first versions of my poems are very long, and they can become boring. I often have to change the point of view to better express what I want to show. It’s never easy. It’s never just one side or one perspective. I always try to give everything I can, rather than just writing something quickly and sending it out.”
While some Hungarian poets publish for a living, Róbert doesn’t. His writing remains personal — something he does because he wants to, not because he needs to.
“I also don’t try to sell my poems like others do. They do it for a living. I have a job, so this is more of a hobby for me.”
D: AND A RECURRING FEELING IN YOUR COLLECTION OF POETRY IS ONE SEARCHING OR WAITING – AND NOT ALWAYS FINDING. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO YOU AS A CREATIVE PERSON?
“We often think we are searching for the purpose of our own existence, but I don’t think that’s true. A Hungarian writer, Béla Hamvas, once said that the purpose of human life is simply to be human. The problem comes when someone wants to exist without meaning. What we should be searching for are the small things. Why are we living? Why does the universe work? Why doesn’t it fall apart? There are too many things we still need to explore and understand. We should focus on those — how the human mind works, how the brain does everything it does. I think that’s a more important pursuit: knowledge, and the meaning from inside.”
D: MY FINAL QUESTION FOR YOU IS THAT, THROUGHOUT ALL OF YOUR POEMS, YOU EXPLORE PROFOUND INTERNAL STATES. SO, YOU’VE GOT THE WILD RAGING STORM TO THE FEELING OF BEING FAR FROM REALITY. NOW, AFTER GIVING READERS SUCH AN INTIMATE LOOK INTO THIS INNER WORLD, MY FINAL QUESTION FOR YOU IS ABOUT THE PERSON. WHAT HAS THE ACT OF WRITING THESE POEMS TAUGHT YOU ABOUT YOURSELF?
“It is a good question. I like everything that comes with life, so we don’t have to be shy to talk about taboos. I wrote many things that [have] become taboo nowadays, like drug usage or making love. These things are important parts of our lives, so we have to educate people and show them that these are ordinary things. These things are part of our lives and we can’t leave that behind.”
Róbert Nagy is a Hungarian poet, journalist, and event organizer with a strong international presence. His work, often exploring existential and social themes, has been featured in numerous anthologies and publications worldwide. In 2014, he was an honorary speaker at the RANEPA conference in Yekaterinburg, Russia, addressing state, politics, and society. He contributed to the 2017 Hungarian poetry anthology ITT-hon - Szülőföldem - otthonom and published his first solo poetry collection, Csillaghattyú (2018), which includes a foreword by László Devecsery, recipient of the József Attila and Radnóti literary prizes. His poems have appeared in international collections such as the 2021 U.S.-published quarantine anthology Global Insides - The Vaccine and the 2023 U.S. poetry anthology A Critique of the Gods. In 2022, his poem Kirándulás was selected for the 100 x SZÉP VAS MEGYE anthology showcasing Vas County. Additionally, in 2025, one of his poems was published in Zimmer Magazine Issue 5 – Community. Based in Szombathely, Róbert Nagy continues to write evocative poetry that reflects on life and society.
You can view Róbert's poetry on pages 40 and 41 of the Journeys issue.