Zapálit oheň v letním dni – Jakimiv Iva (2017)

As if someone had turned off a very delicate, / almost imperceptible fabric / between us and the written words," writes Iva Jakimiv, and through this fine, almost imperceptible fabric – and sometimes perhaps even beyond it and behind it – she guides us. The space we find ourselves in is in a certain way constricted: the poems seem to have been written in one time and place, as if they were bursting forth from a single life situation – yet they are entirely naturally and seamlessly embedded in the landscape, in the elements, and in the city. This coherence and completeness of the collection, along with the pure tone that characterizes her diction, creates an extraordinary reading experience. The individual images and metaphors do not strive for obligatory novelty, as we sometimes witness in young poetry. In the context of contemporary Czech poetry, we cannot categorize the author into a specific group or established way of writing, which I see as a positive aspect. Here we hear a distinctive voice, possessing its own poetics – certainly and clearly informed by reading, but still unmistakable: this 'pure tone' cannot be confused with another.