Jan Skácel smoking a cigarette near main train station. Photo by V. Reichmann, scanned from the second volume of Skácel's anthology.
Jan Skácel, in my opinion the greatest poet that Brno and Moravia have ever had, died 20 years ago – on November 7, 1989.
Skácel’s work was influenced by south Moravian traditions and nature as well as by minimalist Chinese poetry. He was the editor-in-chief of art magazine “Host do domu” in the 1960s; after the Soviet occupation he was prohibited from publishing in the 1970s. Skácel’s poems were distributed in “samizdat” editions at that time, copied by typewriters.
This is my amateur translation of Skácel’s poem about the burial of the only Nobel Prize winning Czech writer:
The burial of Jaroslav Seifert
Folks still had not finished
throwing handfuls of soil to the grave
to make his homeland press him some more.Drivers were starting their engines beneath a wall
and it seemed it was raining a little bit.The cemetery got empty
and it was silent
as if somebody
had set a dog free in his courtyard.And when the dark falls,
the beautiful crazy Victoria will come here from a weir
having a water-lily in her hair.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a warm and touching tribute. I read some of Skacel’s work when I was studying in Brno in 1970 and I loved his gentle humour and way of looking at the world. I had a small collection of essays titled Jedenacty Bily Kun…a title which still amuses me and baffles me. I think that might be what all great writing should do…amuse and baffle. Thanks for your translation…I would like to see it in Czech also.
Best regards
Rod
Dear Rod, you can read the original Czech version of the poem at this address: http://www.sharkan.net/1088-uterni-chvilka-poezie-jan-skacel