The Lure of Words

Pavel Holeka’s (1945) book Vábení slov (The Lure of Words) is a compendium of the author’s poetic works produced since the 1990s. Almost sixty poems are grouped into five sections (Unlocking the Landscape, In the Circus of Love, The Lure of Words, Theatrum mundi, Not Yet Light). These are mostly lyrical texts that aim to provide the reader with a deep and even meditative experience. The poems are accompanied by the author’s illustrations created as a series of collages (Abstract Poems, selected works from 1997–2011). This series plays with fragments of empty score sheets set against a black background and with red letters that form a direct dialogue with the written texts. The two components, written and visual, attempt to create a duplex of language whose primary and common aim is in some places dramatic and in others represents a playful pilgrimage in quest of the poetic word that can be both read and seen at the same time. We thus find ourselves confronted with another extraordinary poetic-artistic undertaking by Pavel Holeka (following his very successful Hebrejská abeceda [The Hebrew Alphabet], 2009), which here closes with an enlightening afterword by Rudolf Matys.