... or connecting poetry with geography. How to get around? You might simply set off from the Brno map and treat yourself to a kind of virtual poetic promenade; equally you might look around via the individual poets; and as a third option via the list of place names. 


Ivan Blatný

Poet, son of the writer Lev Blatný (1894-1930). Born in Brno, he spent the first part of his life here – before escaping into exile in 1948. He lived in a house...

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František Halas

Poet, translator and publicist, Brno born, spent his childhood and youth here. He learned the bookseller’s trade from A. Píša and for a brief period (1919–1921)...

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Oldřich Mikulášek

Poet and publicist. Lived in Brno from 1937 until his death, latterly at Mášova street. He is linked to several cultural institutions (the Brno studios of Czechoslovak...

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Jaroslav Seifert

Poet, publicist, memoirist. The first – and so far the only Czech to receive the Nobel prize for Literature. In addition to the lasting popularity he won through...

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Jan Skácel

Poet, writer, editor and translator. Spent most of his life in Brno and is closely linked to a number of Brno cultural institutions (the magazine Host do domu...

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Vít Slíva

Poet and schoolteacher. His connection to Brno dates back to his university days. Apart from one interlude, he has been living to this day at Poděbradova street....

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Brno

The place and its poets

Ivan Blatný R. Bojko František Halas Petr Hrbáč Zeno Kaprál František Listopad Jiří Veselský Rudolf Žák

Places (in alphabetical order)

Poets (in alphabetical order)

František Listopad

1921  –  2017

Jiří Synek by his real name. Poet, writer, dramatist, essayist, translator. Coming from Prague, after the war he enrolled at Prague’s Philosophical Faculty, from 1947 living in France where he stayed after the coup of February 1948. In 1959 he moved to Portugal, where he is permanently domiciled to-date. He was engaged as a university tutor and art director in several prestigious institutions. The poetry of Listopad is notable for its richness of metaphor, its sense of mindfulness of the present moment and its existential motifs. After 1989 he’s repeatedly been back to his old country. During the 1990s he made several longer trips to Brno, where he lectured at the JAMU Drama Faculty and was art director at the Marta, and Husa na provázku theatres. These travels inspired the section "Soukromé sklenářství v Brně" (‘Private glaziery in Brno’) in his collection Final rondi (1992, separately 1993) as well as poems in the collection Krleš (Kyrie) (1998).

The author and the places of his/her poems

Brno

The poem and the place



So many years

So many years from
snowfall shying    
Snow on my coat scribes
blind art plying

Then it swirls softly
dubbed Czech speaking
I walk through snow back
from show sneaking 

Whither where night
its dream brings patient
like Zelný rynek
to the station


(4. 3. 1995, Brno)


                               translated by Václav Pinkava


 

Listopad, František: Krleš (Kyrie), Brno: Vetus via 1998, p. 45.

Contacts



Jiří Trávníček  -   travnicek@ucl.cas.cz
Michal Fránek  -   franek@ucl.cas.cz

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