Jiri Orten
From Poets.org:
On August 30, 1919 Jiří Ohrenstein was born in Kutná Hora, Central Bohemia, Jiří Orten was one of the finest writers of Czechoslovakia's "war generation." He was raised in a middle-class Jewish family; his father was a businessman and his mother acted in the local theater. As a teenager, Orten moved to Prague with his brother Ota to study drama. He began to publish poems in avant-garde journals and to act in experimental theater groups. Orten spent the summer of 1938 living in Paris. Shortly after he returned to Prague, the Germans occupied Bohemia and Moravia. As a Jew, he was forbidden further travel. His first book of poems, Cítanka jaor (Reader of Spring) was published in 1939.
In 1940, following the German occupation of Prague, Orten was expelled from school and forced to take odd jobs, such as clearing snow. For fear of denunciation from anti-Semitic newspapers, he published his poems under pseudonyms. His collections of poems from this time include Cesta k mrazu (The Journey towards Frost, 1940) and Ohnice (Charlock, 1941).
On his twenty-second birthday, Orten, while trying to cross the street to purchase cigarettes, was struck by a German ambulance. Because he was a Jew, the first hospital he went to refused to admit him. He died two days later.
His diaries, which contained not only all of his poems but also record many of his conversations, letters, and dreams, were published in three volumes after his death. In 1945, a group of friends and younger poets formed a group named after his first collection, Ohnice. Following the arrival of Communism and socialist realism in Czechoslovakia in 1948, however, his work was condemned as "degenerative muck." He would regain favor during the Prague Spring in the late 1960s. Orten's poems show a strong influence of both Czech folklore and surrealism. He most often wrote small, personal lyrics in very simple and direct language. Critics have suggested that his poems exist, both geographically and aesthetically, half way between Lorca and Pasternak.
On August 30, 1919 Jiří Ohrenstein was born in Kutná Hora, Central Bohemia, Jiří Orten was one of the finest writers of Czechoslovakia's "war generation." He was raised in a middle-class Jewish family; his father was a businessman and his mother acted in the local theater. As a teenager, Orten moved to Prague with his brother Ota to study drama. He began to publish poems in avant-garde journals and to act in experimental theater groups. Orten spent the summer of 1938 living in Paris. Shortly after he returned to Prague, the Germans occupied Bohemia and Moravia. As a Jew, he was forbidden further travel. His first book of poems, Cítanka jaor (Reader of Spring) was published in 1939.
In 1940, following the German occupation of Prague, Orten was expelled from school and forced to take odd jobs, such as clearing snow. For fear of denunciation from anti-Semitic newspapers, he published his poems under pseudonyms. His collections of poems from this time include Cesta k mrazu (The Journey towards Frost, 1940) and Ohnice (Charlock, 1941).
On his twenty-second birthday, Orten, while trying to cross the street to purchase cigarettes, was struck by a German ambulance. Because he was a Jew, the first hospital he went to refused to admit him. He died two days later.
His diaries, which contained not only all of his poems but also record many of his conversations, letters, and dreams, were published in three volumes after his death. In 1945, a group of friends and younger poets formed a group named after his first collection, Ohnice. Following the arrival of Communism and socialist realism in Czechoslovakia in 1948, however, his work was condemned as "degenerative muck." He would regain favor during the Prague Spring in the late 1960s. Orten's poems show a strong influence of both Czech folklore and surrealism. He most often wrote small, personal lyrics in very simple and direct language. Critics have suggested that his poems exist, both geographically and aesthetically, half way between Lorca and Pasternak.
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Jiří Orten was one of the great poets of the 20th century.
A Czech Jew who narrowly avoided being sent to a concentration camp, Orten was hit by a speeding German car in Nazi-occupied Prague in 1941. He was refused admission to a nearby hospital and died shortly afterwards (at the age of 22) in a “Jewish Hospital” which was basically a warehouse.
"Jiří Orten is a powerful, visionary poet whose work has been beautifully translated by Lyn Coffin. These are poems we can return to again and again—for their courage, for their sustenance." - Sam Hamill
"Lyn Coffin's translations do justice to a great poet. I can think of no higher praise for a translation than that." - Joseph Brodsky (about Lyn's translations of Orten's Elegies)
"I can now die a happy man.... These are the poems my brother would have written if he'd written in English." - Ota Ornest, Jiří Orten's brother
... How
dark it is outside! What was I going to say?
Oh, yes, now I remember. Because
of all those hours I slept soundly through calm
nights, because of all those loved ones who are deep
in dreams-- Now, when everything's running short,
I can't stand being here by myself. The lamplight's too strong.
I am sowing grain on the headland.
I will not live long.
Available from Kindle - here
Available from Smashwords - here
Jiří Orten was one of the great poets of the 20th century.
A Czech Jew who narrowly avoided being sent to a concentration camp, Orten was hit by a speeding German car in Nazi-occupied Prague in 1941. He was refused admission to a nearby hospital and died shortly afterwards (at the age of 22) in a “Jewish Hospital” which was basically a warehouse.
"Jiří Orten is a powerful, visionary poet whose work has been beautifully translated by Lyn Coffin. These are poems we can return to again and again—for their courage, for their sustenance." - Sam Hamill
"Lyn Coffin's translations do justice to a great poet. I can think of no higher praise for a translation than that." - Joseph Brodsky (about Lyn's translations of Orten's Elegies)
"I can now die a happy man.... These are the poems my brother would have written if he'd written in English." - Ota Ornest, Jiří Orten's brother
... How
dark it is outside! What was I going to say?
Oh, yes, now I remember. Because
of all those hours I slept soundly through calm
nights, because of all those loved ones who are deep
in dreams-- Now, when everything's running short,
I can't stand being here by myself. The lamplight's too strong.
I am sowing grain on the headland.
I will not live long.
