VELVET PESSIMIST: JAN TĚSNOHLÍDEK
- Jan Těsnohlídek
I can’t say that Jan Těsnohlídek is an optimist. But when it comes to poets, isn’t this come with the package?
Těsnohlídek is one of his generations bittersweet pessimist, a good and successful example for sure. Born 11 April 1987, poet is also the owner of publishing house JT’s in Czech Republic.
Těsnohlídek answered our questions about his career and Czech Literature.
For what I see, people see you as the wonder boy of your generation since you’re really young and doing such important works. Do you feel that way?
It’s hard to answer this. In fact, I am just a young poet, who had a luck. There are so many young writers outside and writing so different poetry and everyone is trying his best. Who knows why I am visible more than others? I’ve received Jiri Ortens Award for my first book which was published 2009, and the award was given 2010. That was a big surprise for me and helped me a lot. I can say that when you get award like this, you are taken as a writer, not like someone who is trying to be writer. I think it’s very important, because than people must take you seriously and not only people who like your work, but also people who are trying to ignore it. And when it comes to me, we can say that many people, especially other young poets don’t like me a lot. Main reason for that is; my poetry is very different from the main stream of Czech lyric poetry – which was only one reputable stream in Czech poetry until my book was published. That’s why my work is important. But for me, it is not about writing “important” books. I want to write good books the best way I can. I don’t look on other stuff, all that respected classics of Czech Literature. I am writing my stuff my way and we can say talking about common problems and common things is much more simple. Many critics in Czech Republic say it’s not poetry at all. But for many people, especially young people who don’t care about poetry at all, it is poetry. Cause they can see themselves in my works.
It’s hard to answer this. In fact, I am just a young poet, who had a luck. There are so many young writers outside and writing so different poetry and everyone is trying his best. Who knows why I am visible more than others? I’ve received Jiri Ortens Award for my first book which was published 2009, and the award was given 2010. That was a big surprise for me and helped me a lot. I can say that when you get award like this, you are taken as a writer, not like someone who is trying to be writer. I think it’s very important, because than people must take you seriously and not only people who like your work, but also people who are trying to ignore it. And when it comes to me, we can say that many people, especially other young poets don’t like me a lot. Main reason for that is; my poetry is very different from the main stream of Czech lyric poetry – which was only one reputable stream in Czech poetry until my book was published. That’s why my work is important. But for me, it is not about writing “important” books. I want to write good books the best way I can. I don’t look on other stuff, all that respected classics of Czech Literature. I am writing my stuff my way and we can say talking about common problems and common things is much more simple. Many critics in Czech Republic say it’s not poetry at all. But for many people, especially young people who don’t care about poetry at all, it is poetry. Cause they can see themselves in my works.
Násilí bez předsudků-Violence Withouth Prejudice, 2009
KCould you please tell us about your books Violence Without Prejudice and Cancer?I can say it is usually hard to work on your first book, cause you have so many poems from the past and than you have to decide what you will give to your book and there is lot of work on older stuff and so on. In Violence Without Prejudice, there are poems from my 18 to 22 and they are mostly about growing old, life in a small town, hard family situation. Those poems are mostly quite long and most important for them is rhythm. Some people said that there are many words that don’t have to be there, but I was working on all of those poems pretty hard and what is there, it has to be there.
Cancer was quite different. I was started to work for a literature magazine in that time and also preparing poetry books other writers. When you are working on poems of someone else, you are making some changes, cut-outs, you are more strict to yourself. That’s why Cancer is more about every word. Though it is still full of short stories from life, about some social problems, it is much less about me. Usually, it’s important to work very hard on second book, because it shows if you are good writer or you just had a luck with your first book. That’s why I was pretty careful and my second book had some nice reviews not only in literature magazines, but also in big weekly papers here in Czech Republic, which satisfied me a lot.
During your pretty active teenage years, you worked at so many jobs. Do you think those jobs affected your creativity?Yes-for sure! I think you can’t write good stuff about life, if you sit on your table. I’m from a small town where it is quite hard to live and where there is no work. I worked for a year in small town bookshop and from the age of 20 I started to live in Prague. That’s right I worked at so many different jobs and I am happy for it because I have met so many different people and their stories.
Do you think about writing anything different than poetry?Nowadays I am working on my first novel. It is not done yet, but I can say it will be closer to Violence Without Prejudice than to Cancer. Until today, I found it very hard to decide to write a novel because it takes such a long time and you can’t be sure if it’ll be good. Also I though that every story you can write every story in poem and it’d be even more stronger. Let’s see how my book will look like… It is about love, relations and about how hard it is to be with older girl, who is angry with all the world because of her previous relations. If it ll be half stressful like I m stressed when I m writing it, it’ll still be horribly stressful.
Jan Těsnohlídek
You were 2 years old at 1989, during the Velvet Revolution. You had the perfect vision to see the new era in your country. As a writer, what do you think it’d be like if there was no censure era in Czech Literature?
It is quite hard to say what would it be like… That time was quite hard for writers, especially writers who wrote against communism. I think it is necessary to say that communism was quite different in every communistic country and i can speak only about situation in Czech Republic. I am happy to know quite lot about it, because I know many writers from underground, who had a big troubles during that area, were arrested for many years. In fact we can’t say those times were hard for every writer. On one side there were writers who were writing for communistic state and were very well known and were incredibly rich. It’s necessary to say that those times were much more open to literature, especially poetry, cause on many communistic meetings some poems were read on the beginning. Other thing is that era completely destroyed public meaning about literature, poetry at the first place. For common people, who don’t care about literature it looked like this. It is very easy to understand, cause that official/visible poetry was so bad, you can’t imagine what should it be like. On the other side, there were intelligent people, who weren’t agree with communism and they were working on their own work, which wasn’t taken because it wasn’t celebrating communism at all. Writing in that era -when you wanted to do your stuff and don’t care about politic situation- was hard. Hard to say, how it’ll be with no censure. If there was no censure, it wouldn’t be communism. That’s it.
If you are asking about the new era here, I am not happy with that like no one is. Yes, you can write what you want, but no one cares, because people are even more afraid of thinking. During communistic era everyone had to work. Doesn’t matter if there wasn’t work at all. You had to have some job, state take care of that. You’ll have a work for sure. Nowadays in capitalistic era people are so afraid they will loose their job, that they’ll have no money, they are afraid of thinking so much. But when it comes to literal situation, it might be even harder. in 1990′s, after Velvet Revolution, it was like crazy times. Before there was nothing, then there was everything. People were so exited for it, especially for all the stuff from west. In literature it looked like miracle. In few years, there were so many published book we would never be able to imagine. All that stuff which was forbidden for so many years was published in thousands copies. It was very hard to check everything and even harder to say, what is good and what is not, because then everything that was forbidden before was good.
If you are asking about the new era here, I am not happy with that like no one is. Yes, you can write what you want, but no one cares, because people are even more afraid of thinking. During communistic era everyone had to work. Doesn’t matter if there wasn’t work at all. You had to have some job, state take care of that. You’ll have a work for sure. Nowadays in capitalistic era people are so afraid they will loose their job, that they’ll have no money, they are afraid of thinking so much. But when it comes to literal situation, it might be even harder. in 1990′s, after Velvet Revolution, it was like crazy times. Before there was nothing, then there was everything. People were so exited for it, especially for all the stuff from west. In literature it looked like miracle. In few years, there were so many published book we would never be able to imagine. All that stuff which was forbidden for so many years was published in thousands copies. It was very hard to check everything and even harder to say, what is good and what is not, because then everything that was forbidden before was good.
How do you feel about Czech Literature’s actual situation?During last few years, it started to be more colorful here. There are more experimental works, more fresh poetry. But it is actually nothing so new. There is a big problem about translations in Czech Republic; no one is doing that because no one is getting money for it. That is the reason why people here don’t know about contemporary poetry in the rest of the world and mostly, they don’t care. They are fine with what they have. Let’s see, what time will bring. I feel hopeful for some good young writers. But who want’s to be writer, when you can’t gain any money from it and there are also no money for publishing books? Times are hard for everyone, it looks like even bigger troubles are coming.
