{"id":19,"date":"2018-10-16T14:00:14","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/?page_id=19"},"modified":"2023-01-07T14:19:59","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T14:19:59","slug":"from-a-terrace-in-prague","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/literary-criticism\/from-a-terrace-in-prague\/","title":{"rendered":"From a Terrace in Prague"},"content":{"rendered":"

(buy the book)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA beautiful and fulfilling anthology\u2026 Poems such as Roque Dalton\u2019s \u2018Tavern\u2019 and many others just sing and inspire.\u201d \u2014Ed Sanders<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Litteraria Pragensia, 2011, 350 pages<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prague has been the central, if unlikely, subject of some of the most important poetry of the last century. This diverse anthology gathers and translates into English 120 poems from 16 languages written between 1888 and 2010 which describe Prague or an event that took place there, and places those poems in a literary and historical context with a detailed critical introduction, a Prague poetry map and photos of the locations depicted. Intended as a poetic guidebook to the city of Prague for those who live on both sides of its borders, From a Terrace in Prague highlights the effects that literary movements, political beliefs and historic events have had on poets\u2019 descriptions of the city.<\/p>\n

Reviews<\/h4>\n

\u201cPrague has pervasive literary associations, a fact not overlooked by the hawkers of souvenirs and proprietors of restaurants. In the center you can buy a Kafka mug or t-shirt and have lunch in a pub emblazoned with images from Ha\u0161ek\u2019s The Good Soldier \u0160vejk<\/em>. If that\u2019s not to your taste, there is also a restaurant named after Rilke. Stephan Delbos\u2019s anthology attempts to go beyond this tourist veneer. Though the anthology is styled as a guide, the intentions are bolder. As Delbos, a poet, journalist and translator from New England, writes in his preface, \u2018Walking through Prague with these poems in mind, one has an indelible awareness of the lineage of poetry written in and about these streets and buildings, many of which have remained virtually unchanged for centuries.\u2019 In short, he is rescuing the city\u2019s literary heritage from bastardization.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Ryan Scott, Jacket 2<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a Terrace in Prague<\/em> is an ambitious literary undertaking\u2026\u00a0The great strength of this anthology is its single focus of opening up Prague and the poetry of Prague to the reader. Delbos makes brave editorial choices to that end, not shying away from long poems such as the aforementioned Tsvetaeva poem or Roque Dalton\u2019s masterpiece \u201cTavern,\u201d whose five narrators relate to the reader the \u201cbarroom talk\u201d of the pub U Fleku for seventeen pages. He also doesn\u2019t eschew poems written by collaborators or visual poems, such as those by Jir\u00ed Kol\u00e1r, which are collages made from Czech newspapers and texts.<\/p>\n

From a Terrace in Prague<\/em> is an indispensable gift for anyone traveling to Central Europe or to any lover of Central European history or literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Shaindel Beers, Contrary Magazine<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAn impressive collection, titled \u201cFrom a Terrace in Prague\u201d \u2013 itself a quote from one of my favourite poets, Ivan Blatn\u00fd \u2013 and it offers a rich portrait of the city: often evocative, sometimes provocative, and featuring some of the great names of world poetry. Should we need any proof of Prague as a literary muse, this book offers it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014David Vaughn, Radio Praha<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Contributors: Muhammad Mahdi Al-Jawahiri, Guillaume Apollinaire, Michal Ajvaz, Louis Armand, Ingeborg Bachmann, John Berryman, Petr Bezruc, Konstantin Biebl, Anthony Blake, Ivan Blatny, Egon Bondy, Kamil Bouska, Jiri Brynda, Michael Carter, Paul Celan, Vera Chase, Inger Christensen, Christopher Crawford, Svatopluk Cech, Roque Dalton, Bei Dao, Jas H. Duke, Vincent Farnsworth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Viola Fischerova, Gil Fleishman, Carolyn Forche, Frantisek Gellner, Allen Ginsberg, Frantisek Halas, Vaclav Havel, Nazim Hikmet, Karel Hlavacek, Vladimir Holan, Miroslav Holub, Josef Hora, Petr Hruska, Jaroslav Hutka, Ivan Martin Jirous, Richard Katrovas, Jane Kirwan, Jiri Kolar, Claudiu Komartin, Petr Kral, Martin Langer, David Lehman, Phillis Levin, Larry Levis, Robert Lowell, Antonin Macek, Josef Svatopluk Machar, Ian MacNeill, Sergej Makara, Radek Maly, Jason Mashak, Wojciech A. Maslarz, Iggy McGovern, Edwin Muir, Pablo Neruda, Vitezslav Nezval, Ladislav Novak, Tiago Patricio, Katerina Pinosova, Marie Pujmanova, Justin Quinn, James Ragan, Donald Revell, Tereza Riedlbauchova, Rainer Maria Rilke, Byambin Rinchen, Katerina Rudcenkova, Ed Sanders, James Schuyler, Jaroslav Seifert, David Shapiro, Phil Shoenfelt, Gary Snyder, Philippe Soupault, Antonin Sova, Viktor Spacek, Marcela Sulak, Pavel Srut, Mark Terrill, Karel Toman, Jachym Topol, John Tranter, Seisuke Tsukahara-Watasi, Marina Tsvetaeva, Razvan Tupa, Anne Waldman, Vera Weislitzova, Jiri Wolker, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Jiri Zacek, and Adam Zagajewski.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(buy the book) \u201cA beautiful and fulfilling anthology\u2026 Poems such as Roque Dalton\u2019s \u2018Tavern\u2019 and many others just sing and inspire.\u201d \u2014Ed Sanders Prague has been the central, if unlikely, subject of some of the most important poetry of the last century. This diverse anthology gathers and translates into English 120 poems from 16 languages … Continue reading From a Terrace in Prague<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":329,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-19","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PaBxfb-j","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions\/375"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}