Autumn is the most heartbreaking season, and therefore the most poetic, especially in Prague. In October, a pallor falls over the city. Wisps of coal smoke rise above red-tiled roofs, and Petřin hill, where in August we drank chilled white wine under blossoming pear trees, is a penitentiary of leaves which riot before falling spent to earth. Desperate laughter echoes from cafés. Patrons clasp cups of mulled wine, but even alcohol cannot fend dread of the next four cold, dark months.

Luckily for Prague poets and poetry lovers, the city boasts an active literary journal and a number of readings which have helped establish a supportive community of craft and creative expression to keep one’s blood flowing through even the wickedest of winters.

May 2008 saw the publication of The Prague Revue Issue 8, which represents the journal’s rebirth after a seven-year hiatus. The Prague Revue was a mainstay of Prague literature from 1996 until 2001, publishing seven issues of writing in all genres from Prague and around the world. During its first tenure, The Prague Revue garnered positive reviews from a number of journals and newspapers in Europe and abroad. Rebekah Bloyd, co-translator of Miroslav Holub’s The Rampage (Faber & Faber), for example, described The Prague Revue as “daring and original.”

Issue 8 continues The Prague Revue’s high standards, featuring work from renowned writers such as Czech novelist Ivan Klíma and American poet Alicia Ostriker, as well as photography from Martin Desht and a series of paintings by Edward Hopper. The Prague Revue is currently accepting submissions for Issue 9, due out in May 2009, which promises to continue the publication’s status as a cornerstone of the thriving English-language literary scene in Prague.

For poetry lovers who aren’t keen on reading, Prague offers numerous performance venues. The longest-running and most regular is the Alchemy reading series, held on the first Monday of every month at the Globe bookstore. Each month features both a main reader, usually a foreign poet visiting Prague on grant money or a reading tour, and an open mic where local poets and musicians can perform their latest work.

The most conclusive proof that poetry is alive and well in Prague is the work of some of the city’s active poets. Though these poets do not represent a united stylistic or conceptual front, there are underlying themes and similarities in their work which will provide readers with a clearer idea of what is happening in Prague poetics in 2008.

Scottish poet Chris Crawford has been living and writing in Prague for more than six years. With a fine ear tuned to the physicality of language, Crawford crafts poems that unite compassion and stoicism. The poem “Řešit,” featured in The Prague Revue Issue 8, exemplifies Crawford’s uncompromising sense of language and his willingness to explore the unknown dark.

Řešit: in Czech: To Solve.
The hooks above the r and s
pull them up to the top of the word.

The ř is a tangling of tongues
at the bastard marriage
of the English r and z.

I don’t know any other way to understand that.
…

Řešit. To say it,
almost impossible.
Though out of my mind
on drink, it lets itself out uninhibited,
like the loose cough
of tuberculosis:
more a solution than anything else.

Crawford’s attention to language and craft is clear both in the conceit of the poem and in its construction. Each line is a separate unit of breath and thought which allows the poem to wend from start to finish, accruing meaning along the way, as in the line break: “Though out of my mind/ on drink.” Crawford’s poetry is an unflinching exploration and portrayal of emotional experiences which are both exclusive and universal.

An intense involvement with language and experience is also exemplified in the work of Crawford’s contemporary Elizabeth Gross. In her poems, Gross often engages the past, revisiting and rewriting history with attention to what William Carlos Williams called “the radiant gist.” “What I Lost at Waterloo (Napoleon to Josephine)” also appears in Issue 8 of The Prague Revue:

What I learned at Waterloo
I forgot one August afternoon
while tending my windowbox
geranium, running an index
finger over the arch of her neck.
…

This grooved thumb of mine
is a map of victories, of defeats
is a gift to you.

I wonder what a rose forgets
so she can bloom, bare
her first teeth, draw blood.

Gross uses poetry as a tool to engage history on a level of intimacy normally absent from recapitulations of now-abstract events. The poem is a key which opens the locked door of the past. By boldly personifying a well-known historical personality, Gross grants frail humanity to an otherwise impersonal character.

Poetry is thriving in this golden city on the banks of the Vltava. Publications and literary communities around the world are beginning to take notice of contemporary Prague poets. In closing, I refer to a poem of my own, entitled “Praha,” which both describes and exemplifies Prague as a city and a nexus of poets living and writing in the white heat of inspiration, love, alienation and grief.

City where Soviet tanks
turn pink & sprout fountains

City of snowy fingertips
& fists of rain

Whose river is a woman

City of sisters silk & silver,
thighs & velvet cheekbones

City of a man in fray-cuffed khakis
kicking wishes from a wilted dandelion

City of din. City of breath.
A brick on my tongue.