Básně I. - Ganymedovo ovoce – Petr Pavel (2025)

This Czech-language first volume of Pavel Petr’s collected works brings together his youthful poems written between 1982 and 1991, with some revised by the author in the early 1990s and, in one case, in 1994. The book is divided into sections: 1982 and 1983 are each represented by one poem, while 1984–1986 contain eleven poems. Juvenilia I, titled Mirrors, covers 1987–1988. Juvenilia II, comprising Prophecies for the Poor, Roots of Felled Trees, Journey through Southern Cities, Great Moravia, To Kings and The Shepherd’s Bell Ringing in the Cathedral, covers 1988–1991. Juvenilia III, including Passions, Moravian Echoes, Tracks, Okluky, From Memory and Vanished Poems, covers 1990–1991. The final section, Origines, contains two poems from 1991. Until 1990, Petr published only in samizdat, producing five privately circulated author’s editions: The Pilgrim and the Fool in 1986; Prophecies for the Poor – Rain in the Prison of the River in 1987, with two photographs by the author; an untitled booklet of poems in 1988, with one frottage by the author; an untitled booklet containing Mirrors and The Clearing Is Full of Gifts, with two drawings by the author; and To Kings from 1989–1990. The typescript samizdat editions of The Pilgrim and the Fool, Prophecies for the Poor, Rain in the Prison of the River and To Kings were bound and edited as private author’s editions by Zlín bookbinder Bohumil Siegel. The Shepherd’s Bell Ringing in the Cathedral, a diary in verse, appeared as a separate author’s edition in 1991, while Journey through Southern Cities, a travel record in verse from 1990, was published in an original author’s book with Petr’s photographs.