Boulder poet draws on harrowing family stories in new collection

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(Photo: Courtesy of Michele Battiste)
<p>Michele Battiste&#039;s maternal grandmother and grandfather with their two daughters in Hungary, c. 1950.</p>

Boulder poet Michele Battiste has penned a new collection of poems based on her family's experiences around the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. That's when many Hungarians unsuccessfully rose up against Soviet leaders. More than 2,700 Hungarians lost their lives and hundreds of thousands of them fled the country.

Battiste's mother Erika was a little girl then and is prominently featured in these poems, along with her aunt, grandmother and grandfather (who was wanted by the authorities and escaped with the family).

Battiste met CPR's Ryan Warner at Hungarian Freedom Park on Speer Boulevard in Denver to read from the new collection and to talk about this time of change in her family's history.