Vážná známost

Karel Šiktanc’s collection of poems brings texts from 2003–2007. While in the book in the form of an interview entitled Řeč ne řeč, the poet remembers the landscape of Mácha’s castles as the formative landscape of his poetic experience, in the new collection of poems, he returns to the key myth of Czech poetry in the central cycle, which includes the title poem. His Love Affair is not only his relationship to Mácha (Poetry), but also to other poets (Josef Hora’s Máchovské variace). Jan Koblasa’s prints, which accompany the poems, shift the romantic darkness towards existential tones, while Šiktancean poetics of pauses, exclamations and fragmentary view places traditional topics in contemporary context.