Sebrané básně IV – Král Petr (2023)

The work of Petr Král, spanning half a century, has so far been published only sporadically and in heterogeneous editorial formats; the blame for this also lies with the censorship to which the author was subjected for years (first as a 'surrealist', then as an exile), which significantly delayed the publication of his work. Only his collected edition should allow for a comprehensive grasp of it as a whole and make evident its internal coherence and unique path – both creatively and humanly – that it represents in its continuity. This collected edition of Král's poems is divided into four volumes and was edited by the author himself. The poems are published here for the first time chronologically, in the order in which they were created, with most of them presented now in their definitive form; some compositions have also undergone new – and final – revisions. The editorial commentary at the end of each volume includes the author's prefaces or afterwords that accompanied the poems in the first edition. From (post)surrealism to 'walking metaphysics' is how the author's development is characterized. The collected edition of the poems should fulfill this formula with concrete content while simultaneously presenting Král's work as a complex whole that cannot be reduced to a simple formula.