Commissioned for Eva Frantinova

Just at the end of last year, this leading Czech poet delighted her readers with collections of poetry Dvouplášťové básně a Zavírací hodina. The release happened in five minutes to twelve, so to speak. Thus, not many of the poetry collections presented in these lines made it under the Christmas tree. So with the New Year, it's the best time to run to the nearest bookstore.

Poet and prose writer Eva Frantinová in her collection Dvouplášťové básně He presents his creative harvest over the last two years of his work - thus covering the years 2022 - 2024. In the hundred and fifty pages of the publication with its eye-catching cover, there is a defile of verses that are more than a mere cartographic binding of words into poems. This is to say that they have their so-called second canvas with thought-provoking content to ponder. In this way, Eva Frantinová communicates her feelings, joys and sorrows about the world in which we move. She does so in a modern language that is constantly evolving and we have to get used to Americanisms and various Internet terms. But this is not to the detriment of the cause; on the contrary, perhaps thanks to this, the youngest generation will discover printed poetry instead of mobile phone screens. It is not difficult to decipher the individual poems, and there are more than a hundred of them in the collection. It just takes a little, little thought...

Some of the verses are four lines, others, for example, are four pages long. In short Nápady na přeskáčku. What a piece, but quality poetry of the twenty-first century.

The unread Instagram selfie

Unlike the previous collection, the volume was published Zavírací hodina in festive hardcover, equipped with a silk bookmark and above all accompanied by six unique illustrations by the well-known painter Vojtěch Kolařík from his series of paintings Tváře a ruce.

Compared to the previous collection, these are now mostly sensitive poems, personal confessions about unhappiness and emptiness, about the irreplaceability of love and tenderness, about hope and about the loss of a loved one. Let us judge for ourselves with the randomly selected, and enclosed lines:

Byli jsme tu

Briefly,

like a foggy mirror

Bez tebe

Months of memories to mine

(not to live...)

Jednou

I'll be walking around with a paper

with a sign around your neck

I'm looking for the one who needs me

maybe you'll get into me again

with a gentle tassel

and it won't be about anything...

Even after death together

The two presented collections of Eva Frantinová's poetry have a common denominator. And that is the personality of the outstanding Czech poet without fear or reproach, Karel Sys, who left us in the second half of last year. Verses in the book Dvouplášťové básně was prepared by Karel for printing as the responsible editor for Periscope publishing house in the edition Báseň na sobotu. Collection Zavírací hodina with illustrations by Vojtěch Kolařík was published by Kmen publishing house and Eva Frantinová attributed it to Karel Sýs, and also confesses her relationship to him (although she does not name him) in it.

Their love began in 1975, when the young aspiring poet entered literature with her first poems published in the then cultural weekly Tvorba a Literary Monthlypublished by the Writers' Union. Here, the talented and hard-working Karel Sýs was already in charge of editorial duties and, among other things, cooperation with emerging authors. Soon the two found a liking for each other, firmly rooted in their common interests and the creation of poetry and prose. As Eva Frantin says: "It was true poetic love on the same string of poets tuned to each other, where we had a creative influence on each other."

Eva and Karl were undoubtedly connected by their family history, which led them to visit Israel at the beginning of the Millennium. One branch of each of their ancestors died in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

That extraordinary relationship lasted for more than a quarter of a century and the imaginary end of it was Sýs' passing after a long-lasting serious illness.

In the weekly supplement LUK (Literature, Art, Culture - published by the Union of Czech Writers in the weekly Our Truth) at the end of December 2024, Eva Frantinová's poems appeared on the front page Christmas Eve noon a verše Karla Sýse Dvojí zima, Adult Christmas Eve a První sníh. Here the Frantinová-Sýs duo symbolically said goodbye to their friends, friends and colleagues on the pages of LUK. From now on we will read them together only in books. As Eva Frantinová told us while sitting with the painter Kolařík over the still ink-scented Zavírací hodinou, is now hard at work on a separate volume of his memories of how time and years passed with Karel Sýs, with his fingers intertwined in a living cupcake. The book will be called Na přeskáčku and will be illustrated with a series of period photographs.

In parallel, a book with the working title Karel Sýs a my, where thirty people from our cultural life confess their friendship and cooperation with Karel. Including Vojtěch Kolařík, who was for many years Sýsa's court illustrator for many of his books.

Curriculum vitae

Eva Frantinová (born 4 September 1956 in Prague) has been publishing in magazines since 1975. Among others. Tvorba, Literární měsíčník, Obrys-Kmen, Host, Salon Práva, Divoké víno na internetu. She made her book debut in the publishing house of the Czech Republic. Mladá Fronta in 1979 with a collection of poetry Noc bez krajnic. He lives and works in Prague. She has published two dozen collections of poetry, the most recent being Srdcové pleso. She has written fifteen books of prose, among them. Praha dvouvěžatá, Pod pokličkou či Hladce a obrace.

It is also certainly not without interest that Eva Frantinová loves classical music. In 1970-1977 she studied violin at the State Conservatory, which she still does today.

gnews.cz - Ivan Černý

PHOTO - Jiří Vlastník