Filharmonický vřesk - Výbor z poezie 2007–2025 – Slíva Vít (2025)

Vít Slíva (born 1951) is one of the core authors of Host and one of the most distinguished Czech poets. He is known as "a poet of Holan's inclination, of things that pass by, as an author of high demands, as a celebrant of his native Silesia, a poet of returns, a contemplator of time, also as a virtuoso with an immensely broad expressive range — a minimalist and a rhapsodist, a brilliant craftsman of words and a robust rabble-rouser, a poeta doctus and a wild brute" (Jiří Trávníček). The present volume contains an authorial selection from nine poetry collections published between 2007 and 2025; it chronologically follows the previous selection Bouda Music from 2006. Here we find Slíva's "poetry of polarities": free verse alongside fixed forms, miniatures next to more extensive compositions, as well as The Universe Above Bouda in the poet's birthplace. There is God, both self-evident and questioned, and also Woman as a powerful magnet and a mighty centrifuge. And there is a gaze fixed on the lights of past times and a glance into the shadows of future days. And also the eternal question: How many of those days are still left? And love is not missing, sometimes eternal, and then again, what is not forever... And finally, death as a cruel truth: the counterpoint to life, goodness, beauty — and all meaning.