Sto nejlepších českých básní 2012 – Brousek Antonín (2012)

After the editorial pairs Karel Šiktanc and Karel Piorecký (2009), Miloslav Topinka and Jakub Řehák (2010), Petr Král and Jan Štolba (2011), the fourth installment of the poetry yearbook The Best Czech Poems will again be taken on by a generationally contrasting tandem: arbitrator Antonín Brousek and editor Simona Martínková-Racková. The idea of publishing yearbooks of the 'best' poems was introduced in 1988 by American poet and critic David Lehman. The success that the The Best American Poetry series quickly achieved showed that despite proclamations about a crisis in poetry, there still exists not only a number of good poems but also many good readers. The selection of the 'best' poems is not meant to suggest an illusion of objectivity but is the result of the meeting of two editors, two subjective views on the poetry of the given year and on poetry as such. The editor (a respected expert on contemporary poetry) is also the author of a companion study on contemporary poetry, while the arbitrator ('distinguished' poet) offers an essay touching on his relationship with poetry and specific texts he selected for the anthology. The volume again presents approximately forty poems published in the past year as new poetry by Czech authors; attention is paid to book and magazine publications,…