Black Moss Press

Eva Tihanyi was born in Budapest, Hungary, in July 1956 three months before the Hungarian Uprising.

Her parents escaped in January 1957 leaving her in the care of her grandparents. The family was not reunited until 1962.

Tihanyi grew up in Windsor, where she completed a Communication Arts (Journalism) diploma at St. Clair College in 1975. This was followed by an Honours B.A. in English Language and Literature (1977) and a Masters in Creative Writing (1978) both at the University of Windsor (1978. Her thesis director was Alistair MacLeod.

In 1981, Tihanyi moved to Toronto and in 1989 to Welland, Ontario, where she has taught English at Niagara College ever since.

Her previous books are Restoring the Wickedness (Thistledown, 2000), Saved by the Telling (Thistledown, 1995), Prophecies Near the Speed of Light (Thistledown, 1984) and A Sequence of the Blood (Aya, 1983). Tihanyi has also been an active freelance book reviewer (for the Toronto Star since 2000) and interviewer for over twenty-five years. She served as the First Novels columnist for Books in Canada from 1995-99.

Tihanyi lives in Welland, Ontario, with her son, her partner Elspeth Cameron, and three cats. She is presently at work on her first short story collection.

Wresting the Grace of the World

"a graceful new book… meant to chronicle a life’s journey…”

— Niagara Falls Review

“Flecked and mottled by love light, her poems interfuse stories of anguish and acceptance in a storm-calmed life.”

–J. S. Porter, Hammered

The poems in Eva Tihanyi’s fifth collection are about trying to find grace in the world of everyday life. The book is divided into three parts which work together to chronicle three aspects of the life journey.

The first, “Sacred Disasters” is about the quest for a spiritual dimension (not to be confused with organized religion) and how the upheavals in relationships can hinder this quest but eventually aid it too.

The second, “The Burrs of Paradise,” is a 17-section long poem chronicling the disintegration of a marriage. The third, “The Persistence of Vision,” uses photography as its central metaphor to explore the experience of erotic love. It is about the importance of being able to see clearly, the idea that sight is a very subjective thing.

Poetry, 96 pages
ISBN 0-88753-405-8 5.375 x 6.125, $17.95

Poetry is the genre I have been working in since I was fourteen.

I have always been drawn to the power, the beauty, the surprise of metaphor, and poetry is the genre which uses metaphor most. It is also compact, the fewest of words for the greatest impact.

There are certain moods, feelings, moments that simply cannot be expressed as effectively in other genres as they can be in poetry.

For these reasons—even though I am currently working on my first story collection-- I don’t think I’ll ever stop writing poems.

–Eva Tihanyi