The Drug of Art

Selected Poems

“The verses and fate of the poet Ivan Blatny . . . complete the fate of Czech literature, which transcended the borders of the nation, often struggling for survival.”—Václav Havel

 Lost to the world for twenty-five years, Ivan Blatny was, according to the Czech Ministry of Culture, “one of the most significant Czech poets of the twentieth century.” Blatny fled Czechoslovakia after the Communist coup in 1948, but didn’t cope well with exile. This volume spans fifty years of his career and is notable for being the first major collection of Blatny’s work in English, including his multi-lingual poems written in English mental hospitals.