Karolinum Press, 2017 eISBN: 978-80-246-3426-5 | Cloth: 978-80-246-3425-8 Library of Congress Classification PG5038.R39A2 2017
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
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.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
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.
REVIEWS
“Goats, spiders, infernal roosters; a reddening sun, emerging florets; hayricks, byres, windows, rakes; Advent, Christmas; Job and Esau; the drama of sacrifice—these are poems attentive to, sprung from, a creaturely world subtended by a metaphysical presence. In Reynek the reader of English encounters a twentieth-century Czech poet both profoundly Catholic and utterly, subtly modern. Translator Quinn has brought Reynek—himself an estimable translator of Rimbaud, Francis Jammes, Valéry—into an English aligned with the caretaking apparent directness of Frost, of Edward Thomas; other readers may hear here something of an Englished Georg Trakl. . . . . There is a simplicity here as if of old ballads, folk songs—as if: this is the simplicity of the profoundly pondered, distilled, parsed, and pared. . . . In these selected poems we encounter an informed attentiveness, a sensibility alert to the signs and parables which the ordinary endlessly affords. . . . It is timely for Reynek to have made his track into English. His work asks for, and rewards, a deep listening.”
— Maureen N. McLane, author of “My Poets” and National Book Award finalist “This Blue”
“Reynek’s career as a poet, translator, and artist spanned and transcended the most horrific political turmoil in modern European history. Now his poetry and art are celebrated in a handsome volume. . . . [Quinn’s] lyrical renderings delicately dismantle many preconceptions of how a Central European poet ought to sound. . . . Beautiful and revelatory. . . . Quinn’s rendering of Reynek’s poems appears effortless, but it has in fact been a labor of love for many years. The result feels more like transubstantiation than translation.”
— Michael Tate, Los Angeles Review of Books
"This most recent addition to the Modern Czech Classics series offers a selection of poems and prints by Reynek—who worked as an author, translator, and graphic artist—that spans five decades, from the early 1920s through early 1970s. . . . Reynek took the pastoral as his great theme, and Quinn’s deft translations alluringly echo the environmental emphasis of some of his own poems. . . . A unique and welcome addition from a publisher that has done much to bring the works of Czech authors to a wider readership through its thoughtful and attractive editions. "
— Meghan Forbes, Words Without Borders
"From Karolinum Press’s Modern Czech Classics series comes a compilation of Reynek’s art and poetry that will introduce a new audience to the influential Czech author."
— Rachel Cordasco, Book Riot
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Contents
Selected Poems
A Fool
Signs of Autumn
Hoar-Frost
Springtide
Ballad
The Morning…
Pilgrimage to La Salette
Dawn in Winter
Idyll, Morning
Mid-Winter Longing
Three Goats
Cockerels
Carpenters in the Wind
Hair
Spider
Fly
Gathering Potatoes
Yellow Bedstraw, a Blessing
Snow Across the Threshold
The Well at Morning
Hawkmoths at Evening
Light Breeze
Initials
Evening
Shadows
November
Goats in the Field
At Home
A Memory
Hay Rick in Winter
Advent in Stará Říše
Twilight
Job in Winter
A Dead Cat
But Still the Levins
Quince on the Table
Wet Snow
Swallow
At Home
Frost
Rue L…
Door
Through the Dark
Paths of Home
November
Windows on Streets
Goose in Mist
Saint Martin
Sticks in a Fence
Looking Forward
Christmas, 1970
The Angel of Distress
Swallows Flown
Match in a Puddle
Graphic Art
Four Poems by Suzanne Renaud
Harvest Moon
Tom Thumb
Wearish Old Tree
Day of the Dead, 1938
Essays on Bohuslav Reynek
Bohuslav Reynek: From Catholic Counterculture and the Apocalypse to a Highland Farm
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.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
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.
REVIEWS
“Goats, spiders, infernal roosters; a reddening sun, emerging florets; hayricks, byres, windows, rakes; Advent, Christmas; Job and Esau; the drama of sacrifice—these are poems attentive to, sprung from, a creaturely world subtended by a metaphysical presence. In Reynek the reader of English encounters a twentieth-century Czech poet both profoundly Catholic and utterly, subtly modern. Translator Quinn has brought Reynek—himself an estimable translator of Rimbaud, Francis Jammes, Valéry—into an English aligned with the caretaking apparent directness of Frost, of Edward Thomas; other readers may hear here something of an Englished Georg Trakl. . . . . There is a simplicity here as if of old ballads, folk songs—as if: this is the simplicity of the profoundly pondered, distilled, parsed, and pared. . . . In these selected poems we encounter an informed attentiveness, a sensibility alert to the signs and parables which the ordinary endlessly affords. . . . It is timely for Reynek to have made his track into English. His work asks for, and rewards, a deep listening.”
— Maureen N. McLane, author of “My Poets” and National Book Award finalist “This Blue”
“Reynek’s career as a poet, translator, and artist spanned and transcended the most horrific political turmoil in modern European history. Now his poetry and art are celebrated in a handsome volume. . . . [Quinn’s] lyrical renderings delicately dismantle many preconceptions of how a Central European poet ought to sound. . . . Beautiful and revelatory. . . . Quinn’s rendering of Reynek’s poems appears effortless, but it has in fact been a labor of love for many years. The result feels more like transubstantiation than translation.”
— Michael Tate, Los Angeles Review of Books
"This most recent addition to the Modern Czech Classics series offers a selection of poems and prints by Reynek—who worked as an author, translator, and graphic artist—that spans five decades, from the early 1920s through early 1970s. . . . Reynek took the pastoral as his great theme, and Quinn’s deft translations alluringly echo the environmental emphasis of some of his own poems. . . . A unique and welcome addition from a publisher that has done much to bring the works of Czech authors to a wider readership through its thoughtful and attractive editions. "
— Meghan Forbes, Words Without Borders
"From Karolinum Press’s Modern Czech Classics series comes a compilation of Reynek’s art and poetry that will introduce a new audience to the influential Czech author."
— Rachel Cordasco, Book Riot
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Contents
Selected Poems
A Fool
Signs of Autumn
Hoar-Frost
Springtide
Ballad
The Morning…
Pilgrimage to La Salette
Dawn in Winter
Idyll, Morning
Mid-Winter Longing
Three Goats
Cockerels
Carpenters in the Wind
Hair
Spider
Fly
Gathering Potatoes
Yellow Bedstraw, a Blessing
Snow Across the Threshold
The Well at Morning
Hawkmoths at Evening
Light Breeze
Initials
Evening
Shadows
November
Goats in the Field
At Home
A Memory
Hay Rick in Winter
Advent in Stará Říše
Twilight
Job in Winter
A Dead Cat
But Still the Levins
Quince on the Table
Wet Snow
Swallow
At Home
Frost
Rue L…
Door
Through the Dark
Paths of Home
November
Windows on Streets
Goose in Mist
Saint Martin
Sticks in a Fence
Looking Forward
Christmas, 1970
The Angel of Distress
Swallows Flown
Match in a Puddle
Graphic Art
Four Poems by Suzanne Renaud
Harvest Moon
Tom Thumb
Wearish Old Tree
Day of the Dead, 1938
Essays on Bohuslav Reynek
Bohuslav Reynek: From Catholic Counterculture and the Apocalypse to a Highland Farm
Reynek’s Journeys
Bohuslav Reynek’s Graphic Art
Czech Titles of English Poems
List of Illustrations
Translator’s Acknowledgements
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC