Marie Šťastná’s lean poetry addresses universal questions concerning relationships, family expectations and inner freedom.

Poetry

The collection Happiness Is Sure to Come is made up of sections that bring together poems on a particular theme – “Rules”, “Time”, “Breathing”, “Moving” and “Bridges” – and one could say they are everyday poems written from the perspective of a woman, mother, girlfriend, daughter and granddaughter. A concealed freedom is happily poured into the poems about the smiling promise of happiness in life, which plays very well with the author’s surname on the cover (“Šťastná” means “happy” in Czech). A detachment from non-happiness and sorrow – strangers’ and one’s own – the ability to take a sober and, in places, amused look at them, mixes with the ability to revive and rejoice in the old predatory ferocity and indomitability incarnate. Happiness Is Sure to Come has a disturbing chill to it, beneath which boils something very erotic and elementally unrestrained, which will obstinately rebel against the everyday and the expected.

Marie Šťastná (1981) graduated from the teacher training college in Přerov and in art history and cultural history from Ostrava University’s Faculty of Arts. She has written for various literary journals and published the poetry collections Krajina s Ofélií (Landscape with Ophelia, 2003, Jiří Orten Award 2004), Akty (Nudes, 2006) and Interiéry (Interiors, 2010). In the same year she was awarded the Dresden Lyric Prize. She lives in Prague.