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Robert Zend (1929-1985): Poet without Borders – Preface with Portraits
Preface with Portraits Click to view slideshow. All images of work by Robert Zend are copyright © Janine Zend, all rights reserved, reproduced with permission from Janine Zend. Family photographs are...
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Robert Zend – Part 1. Linelife: Premiere of a Rediscovered Treasure
Part 1. Linelife: Premiere of a Rediscovered Treasure I begin my series on the life and work of Robert Zend with the presentation of a previously unpublished short visual work entitled...
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Robert Zend – Part 2. Dissolving Labels and Boundaries
Part 2. Dissolving Labels and Boundaries Being a poet does not depend on the geographical location of the poet’s body, or on the political system under which the publisher functions, but on the...
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Robert Zend – Part 3. Hungary: Childhood and Early Adulthood
Part 3. Hungary: Childhood and Early Adulthood Little has been publicly known about Robert Zend’s early years in Hungary, prior to the 1956 Uprising and his subsequent immigration to Canada....
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Robert Zend – Part 4. Canada: “Freedom, Everybody’s Homeland”
Part 4. Canada: “Freedom, Everybody’s Homeland” Robert Zend and his wife, Ibi, and eight-month-old baby, Aniko, escaped Hungary in mid-November 1956 when the Soviets crushed the Hungarian...
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Robert Zend – Part 5. Hungarian Literary Roots: The Budapest Joke and Other...
Part 5. Hungarian Literary Roots: The Budapest Joke and Other Influences If we look at Zend’s oeuvre only in a Canadian context, we miss out on the rich cultural heritage in Hungary that...
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Robert Zend – Part 6. Canadian Literary Cross-Pollination: Marshall McLuhan
Part 6. Canadian Literary Cross-Pollination: Marshall McLuhan (1911—1980) Introduction: Multiculturalism before Multiculturalism In the last installment, “Hungarian Literary Roots,” I traced...
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Robert Zend – Part 7. Canadian Literary Cross-Pollination: bpNichol
Part 7. Canadian Literary Cross-Pollination: bpNichol, The Four Horsemen, and Jiri Ladocha In the last installment, I began my exploration of Robert Zend’s affinities with Canadian cultural...
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Robert Zend – Part 8. Canadian Literary Cross-Pollination: The Three Roberts,...
Part 8. Canadian Literary Cross-Pollination: The Three Roberts, Norman McLaren, and Glenn Gould Robert Zend the Nomad...
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Robert Zend – Part 9. International Affinities: Argentina (Borges)
Part 9. International Affinities: Argentina (Borges) Introduction: Belonging Nowhere but Humanity In the previous sections, I traced some of Robert Zend’s Hungarian literary roots as well as...
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Robert Zend – Part 10. International Affinities: France (Marcel Marceau)
Part 10. International Affinities: France (Marcel Marceau) L’Art du Silence and the Language of Empathy In 1955, French mime artist Marcel Marceau made his historic North American debut,...
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Robert Zend – Part 11. International Affinities: Italy (Leopardi and Pirandello)
Part 11. International Affinities: Italy (Leopardi and Pirandello) Melancholy and Masks Zend’s father laid the foundation for his son’s cosmopolitan outlook by traveling with the boy in...
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Robert Zend – Part 12. International Affinities: Belgium (Magritte) and Japan
Part 12. International Affinities: Belgium (Magritte) and Japan Robert Zend’s international openness was remarkable, especially during a time when a broad tendency in Canadian culture was to...
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Robert Zend – Part 13. Gaskets, Thumbtacks, Toilet Paper Rolls . . . and Doodles
Part 13. Gaskets, Thumbtacks, Toilet Paper Rolls . . . and Doodles Robert Zend dissolved boundaries, or perhaps more accurately, ignored them. The preceding eight installments demonstrated...
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Robert Zend – Afterword: Citizen of the Macrocosm
Afterword: Citizen of the Macrocosm Robert Zend admired Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy for his unwillingness “to accept any label, either for himself or for others”: He didn’t identify...
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