RECENZE:

CELTIC SPIRIT BROUGHT TO LIFE

Desmond Egas DESpectrum//DESpektrum, a beutifully produced 244-page Czech-English bilingual hardcover book featuring poems of Desmond Egan, was formally launched in Prague on Saint Patrick’s Day 2002, and became the highlight of the Bloomsday celebrations this past June 16th.
The ook comes with its own CD so at first sight, one might regard it as part of the modern trend towards multimedia works of art. But in fact, Egan’s poetry virtually cries out for multimedia treatment: it is full of visual images of the Irish landscape, while frequently referring to specific musical experiences.
The book-cum-CD is the effort of Ivana Bozděchová, who thought up the whole idea, and in turn commissioned special music, arranged that the recordings of music mentioned in the poems be amde available, selected the photographs for the volume (both landscape pictures and snaps of Desmond Egan reading his poetry), and signed up acotrs for reading the poems in czech. In short, she did everything from copyright negotiations to organizing and supervising the work in the recording studio and proof-reading the book. For this, we owe her a great debt of gratitude. By creating DESpectrum, she has introduced a new art form (or genre) that may well be found suitable for other poets. Bozděchová’s work has been justly recognized via her receiving the 2002 CIBA/James Joyce Award, presented to her by the Irish ambassador in Prague.
The book opens with tributes to Egan by friends and fellow-poets, while the CD begins with a kind of "overture." When we hear Egan’s voice reading the first poem, he is no longer a stranger. There are musical interludes between the individual poems, which are read partly in English (by Egan himself) and partly in Czech (by professional actors). For example, after "Morning in Wind and New Sounds" with its quotation from Richard Strauss’s song "Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen," we hear this haunging song in an unforgettable rendition by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. "Listening to John McCormack" is preceded by McCormack singing "Maggie." We hear Billie Holiday and Bill Evans before we hear Egan’s poems dedicated to them. The poem "Prelude", dedicated to the pianist Hans Palsson, is followed by a recording of Palsson himself playing Franz Schubert’s Impropmtu in G flat major. Music specially composed and played by Jan Hrubý (he on violin, his daughter on a recorder), as background seems to fit the Celtic mood exactly. The book also contains bibliographical data on Egan’s poetry.
The ideal way to enjoy DESpectrum is to play the CD while reading the book. The CD is alternatively bilingual, whereas the book is continually bilingual on facing pages. This composite work therefore addresses itself equally to Czech and English readers. It deserves to be widely bought, listened to, and read.

The Nothern Ireland Question

two wee girls
were playing tig near a car...

how many counties would you say
are worth their scattered fingers?