This collection spans almost 40 years of writing, much of it under circumstances that involved risk and silence, living under Communism in Czechoslovakia, pursuing a career as a scientist, and carrying on the 20th century’s experimental tradition as represented by artists like Arp, Miro, and William Carlos Williams. By the time of his death in 1998, Miroslav Holub had become one of the most widely acclaimed poets on the planet.
Table of Contents
A Note on the Selection and Translations • (GENEALOGY) • Bones • Wings • Truth • The Door • Riders • Fall of Troy • Discobolos • The Fly • Napoleon • The Corporal Who Killed Archimedes • Great Ancestors • From the Travels of Abigdor Karo • Glass • Fish • Skinning • The Forest • Dreams • Five Minutes After the Air Raid • Annuciation • The Steam Car • The Prague of Jan Palach • Whaling • At Last • The Moth • Head-Smashed-In • Crowd-Walkers • The British Museum • The Ten Commandments • Supper • (ANTHROPOLOGY) • Ode to Joy • Love • Lovers in August • Night at the Observatory • United Flight 412 • Landscapes • The Minotaur on Love • On the Origin of 6 p.m. • Love, As They Say • Parallels Syndrome • The End of the Week • Freedom • The Day of the Pollyanna • The Dangers of the Night • Man Cursing the Sea • Burning • The Wall inthe Corner by the Stairs • Half a Hedgehog • My Mother Learns Spanish • Autumn • Philosophy of Fall • The Garden of Old People • A Boy’s Head • Prince Hamlet’s Milk Tooth • Teacher • Hemophilia/Los Angeles • Immanuel Kant • Whale Songs • Elementary School Field Trip to the Dinosaur Exhibit • The Rampage • Masterpiece • (SEMIOLOGY) • Although • Swans in Flight • Teaching About Diseases • Brief Reflection on Cats Growing on Trees • Brief Reflection on Accuracy • Brief Reflection on the Theory of Relativity • Brief Reflection on an Old Woman with a Pushcart • Brief Reflection on Gargoyles • Brief Reflection on the Butchering of Carp • Brief Reflection on Floods • Meeting Ezra Pound • The Autumn Bus • The Angel of Death • Crucifix • Sand Game • Door II • Questioning • Fairy Tales • How We Played the Gilgamesh Epic • Scene with Fiddlers • Punch’s Dream • The Sorcerer’s Lament • Ganesha • (PATHOLOGY) • Reality • Suffering • In the Microscope • Pathology • The Bomb • Explosion • The Dead • Collision • Brief Reflection on the Word ‘Pain’ • Distant Howling • Interferon • While Fleeing • The Earth is Shrinking • Spinal Cord • Heart Failure • Pompeii • Kuru, or the Smiling Death Syndrome • Vanishing Lung Syndrome • Crush Syndrome • Anencephaly • Intensive Care Unit • Heart Transplant • (TAUTOLOGY) • What Else • The Best Room, or Interpretation of a Poem • End of the Game • Landscape with Poets • Two in a Landscape • the Minotaur’s Thoughts on Poetry • Conversation with a Poet • The Autumn Orchard • Literary Bash • the Pied Pipers • Anatomy of January • The Rain at Night • Fog • Behind the House • The Earliest Angels • Anything About God •The Teaching of the Master • The Last Night Bus • The Bird • Spacetime