A collection inspired by sentences from the work of A. P. Chekhov: “To know three languages in this city is a needless luxury. Not even a luxury, but something unnecessarily extra, like a sixth finger.” A work of poetic maturity surrendering itself to freedom, mystery, and the melancholy of a dream. Into it, like shadows, seep an awareness of the end, environmental grief, memories, and reconciliation, experienced mostly while traveling. Can one find any light in all of this? Any meaning, any understanding of what our existence is for? A beautifully laborious futility, as if we were discovering the mysterious purpose of that sixth finger.

Published in 2022 by Host Publishers in the Czech Republic.
80 pages / 12,2 x 18,5 cm

other books by Milan Děžinský

Milan Děžinský’s poems twist and turn through murky forests and dig into the debris of the world: its hidden motivations, overlooked objects, and mysterious wounds. From the “dead-motionless floating island,/ sinking into the shadows” to the hazelnut that’s been “burrowing all the way to the bottom” of the muesli bowl, Děžinský brings the otherwise unseen into eerie half-light. This collection is unsettling, concise, dark, mischievous, and emotionally astute.

Published in 2012 by Host Publishers in the Czech Republic.
80 pages / 120 x 185 mm

other books by Milan Děžinský

During his walks along the river Elbe in the Czech town Roudnice, where he lives, Milan Děžinský shapes his poems from small, everyday moments. In turn, his poetry collections are marked by a restrained, indirect expressivity that gains strength through understatement. In this collection, that approach reaches a rare level of concentration and was recognised by the Magnesia Litera Award in 2018, which described Walking Around an Island as “coherent and, in a certain sense, perfect. In every poem, one can find at least a single moment that crosses the boundary between the excellent and the extraordinary, the eloquent and the revelatory, the faithful and the immediate.”

The poem “After a Car Crash,” trans. by Nathan Fields, appeared in The New York Review of Books.

Published in 2017 by Host Publishers in the Czech Republic.
64 pages / 120 x 185 mm

other books by Milan Děžinský