Springtide
 
A chaffinch in a tree
of cherry sings merrily
spring’s introit.
 
Its blazing bobble dwells
in leaves, alive, and swells
in scarlet.
 
The flowers are flares of white.
The chaffinch has gone quiet
and turned sky-gazer.
 
My eyes close on the day:
an orb revolves in grey
and red and azure.
 
Poet and artist Bohuslav Reynek spent most of his life in the relative obscurity of the Czech-Moravian Highlands; although he suffered at the hands of the Communist regime, he cannot be numbered among the dissident poets of Eastern Europe who won acclaim for their political poetry in the second half of the twentieth century. Rather, Reynek belongs to an older pastoral-devotional tradition—a kindred spirit to the likes of English-language poets Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Wordsworth, Robert Frost, and Edward Thomas. The Well at Morning presents a selection of poems from across his life and is illustrated with twenty-five of his own color etchings. Also featuring three essays by leading scholars that place Reynek’s life and work alongside those of his better-known peers, this book presents a noted Czech artist to the wider world, reshaping and amplifying our understanding of modern European poetry.

Bohuslav Reynek (1892–1971) was an influential twentieth-century Czech poet and artist. Justin Quinn is an Irish poet, critic, and translator who has lived in Prague since 1992. He works at the University of West Bohemia and is the author of several studies of twentieth-century poetry, most recently Between Two Fires: Transnationalism and Cold War Poetry.

— Maureen N. McLane, author of “My Poets” and National Book Award finalist “This Blue”

— Michael Tate, Los Angeles Review of Books

— Meghan Forbes, Words Without Borders

— Rachel Cordasco, Book Riot