Plant the poplars tightly around the pond
March 4, 2010
You are heartily invited to a literary evening of Josef Topol (the name means “poplar” in English), the third of the cycle of five evenings within the Spring with 36ers which will be held on Wednesday, 31st March 2010 from 6 p.m. in the Montmartre Gallery, Řetězová 7, Prague 1.
Josef Topol’s poetry remained the poet’s privatissimo throughout his entire life - the publication was executed only in the nineties. His poetry turns away completely from contemporary reality, seeking refuge in proudly archaic and aristocratic language of poets of Romanticism. It is a poetry tracing step by step the author’s mental world from teenage exaltation to feelings of darkness and hopelessness in the eighties, where only spiritual hope stands in resistance, despite everything. Words slimness and anxiety are the constants in his poetry.
Martin C. Putna will present the literary and historical introduction. The texts will be read by DAMU (Academy of Performing Arts) students Jiří Suchý z Tábora and Marie Štípková. The poet will be represented by his guardian angel, Vlastimil Harapes.
Related photographs
- Literary Evening – Josef Topol 13/04/10
Related events
- Literary evening - Josef Topol 31/03/10 18:00 – 20:00
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A Word about Words – samizdat essay
„Besides, to be wary of words and of the horrors that might slumber inconspicuously within them – isn’t this, after all, the true vocation of the intellectual? I recall that André Glucksmann once spoke in Prague about the need for intellectuals to emulate Cassandra: to listen carefully to the words of the powerful, to be watchful of them, to forewarn them of their danger, and to proclaim their dire implications or the evil they might invoke.“
Václav Havel:
A Word about Words – samizdat essay
July 25, 1989
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