Jirous starts authorship reading tour of USA
With an indispensable bear bottle in hand, Jirous, a 56-year-old legend of Czech underground recited his poem at the prestigious Columbia University.
At the beginning, Jirous unveiled both his new and old poems, heavily influenced by his long-term prison sentence under the Communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia.
At first, the poems were read in English translation. This was followed by Jirous's unmistakable reciting style, interspersed with accurately timed vulgarisms.
His poems come from a specific context, Christopher Harwood, who lectures Czech at Columbia University, said.
The language includes something very strong, such as sounds, said Harwood who performed most of the translations of Jirous's poems.
A part of the evening belonged to the legendary rock group Plastic People of the Universe with which Jirous collaborated.
Plastic People of the Universe were banned in the mid-1970s by the Communist regime.
Jirous will also have a performance in the Czech Centre in New York and Czech consulates in Chicago and Toronto and the Czech embassy in Ottawa.
He will unveil his children's book Magor to Children he wrote as a political prisoner in the 1980s.
At the close of the tour, he will return to New York on December 11, where the Czech Centre will stage the concert Homage to Magor. Avant-garde and experimental musicians such as Elliott Sharp will perform there.
Ivan Martin Jirous was born in 1944. He is one of the most outstanding personalities of the Czech underground literature and music during the Communist regime.
He was repeatedly imprisoned in the 1970s and 1980s. He is a holder of the Jaroslav Seifert Prize for his life-time poetry and the Tom Stoppard Prize for the collection Magor's Swan Songs.
