Czech Books “Six Czech Poets”: A first post-revolution anthology of contemporary Czech verse in English
In this week’s Czech Books we look at what is, amazingly, the first anthology of contemporary Czech poetry to be published in English since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The anthology includes six contemporary poets, some of whom were writing under communism – either in exile or what might be termed internal exile. Others are much younger and have been published since the late 1990s. The anthology, called simply “Six Czech Poets”, was edited by Alexandra Büchler, who divides her time between Prague and the United Kingdom and has been responsible for drawing the attention of the English-speaking world to much contemporary writing from Central and Eastern Europe. When we met to talk about the new anthology Alexandra began by reading a poem by the 31-year-old Czech poet, Katerina Rudcenkova, who is probably the most successful and best known of the younger generation of Czech women poets. This is a poem about the fear of growing old.
Petr Borkovec
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