Product Description
At the time of his death in 1998, Miroslav Holub was one of the most widely admired poets on the planet. This collection spans almost forty years of writing, much of it under circumstances that involved risk and silence, living under Communism, pursuing a career as a scientist, and carrying on the twentieth century's experimental tradition in poetry. Its range, its wit, its power to both disturb and enlighten, confirm Holub's status as a major writer, a Czech poet and immunologist whose voice is sometimes and somehow the voice of our age, and whose sense of our rights and wrongs is a corrective to our more foolish fads and infatuations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Too much of a great thing.
Miroslav Holub, Poems Before and After (Bloodaxe Books, 1990)

Surrealism is rather like Death by Chocolate. It's great in small doses, but if you get too much at once, you're going to get sick. Poems Before and After, which is for all intents and purposes the Collected Translations up to 1990, is verging on the too much.

Miroslav Holub is a brilliant writer, one of the same generation of Eastern European writers that produced poetic giants Charles Simic and Vladimir Holan. And Holub's best work easily stands with Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk or A Night with Hamlet (see, e.g., Vanishing Lung Syndrome). And there's no denying that the work here is, for the most part, fantastic. Absolutely lovely stuff. But there's so much of it, and Holub's work is so dense, that the reader is best advised to read this book over a space of months, dipping into it now and again before retreating and mulling over what he's read. This is one for your permanent collection; you'll be going back to it over the space of years. However, if you're a Holub newbie, as most folks are, you're probably best advised to start with one of the single collections and work your way up to this one. *** ½ ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of poems from Czech poet Holub, half from before the Soviet invasion, the other half from after 1968. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Stunning.
Miroslav Holub, Vanishing Lung Syndrome (Oberlin College Press, 1990)

I have another new hero in the fight against the utter destruction of poetry that is going on around me, and his name is Miroslav Holub.

Vanishing Lung Syndrome is one of those books that grabs hold from the first page and stays with you long after you've put it down. Perfectly-crafted (and what's more impressive, perfectly-translated) gems of poetry that have an almost instinctive understanding of what makes poetry most effective.

"Inside, there may be growing
an abandoned room,
bare walls, pale squares where pictures hung,
a disconnected phone,
feathers settling on the floor
the Encyclopedists have moved out and
Dostoyevsky never found the place..."
(--"Vanishing Lung Syndrome")

An incredible piece of work. Find this. Read it. ***** ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of essays from Miroslav Holub, the Czech immunologist and poet. In one essay, the wanton assassination of a musk rat provokes a meticulous meditation on the nature of survival that manages to be both a lucid scientific exposition and a concealed allegory on Central European politics. ... Read more

Product Description
From the microscopic to the mundane, Miroslav Holub's first collection of observations is a delight for thoughtful readers. Holub's dry wit and scientific acumen focus on the intersection of the scientific world with everyday life, finding bemused delight in the mysteries of the universe and the often surreal details of life and politics in Prague. ... Read more

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A collection of poems whose topics range from the nightmare paintings of Bosch and Breughel to the findings of modern science, on which subject Holub is a specialist in the field of immunology. He also wrote "`The Dimension of the Present Moment' and Other Essays" and "Vanishing Lung Syndrome". ... Read more

Product Description
Immunology of Nude Mice presents a discussion of the nature of this viable laboratory mutant. This new volume updates all immunological information contained in the sparse literature concerning nude mice. It comprehensively explores some of the fre-quent questions associated with nude mice, such as if the mutant is really athymic or if the thymic defect causes all of the other deviations from brain to gonads. The practical consequences of hairlessness of the mutant are also consid-ered. Illustrated with original photographs and tables doc-umenting novel facts in immunology and physiology of nude mice, this publication is valuable for investigators and stu-dents entering the field. ... Read more

Product Description
Miroslav Holub is an internationally renowned immunologist who is also a celebrated poet. His poems are meticulously crafted, written in delicate, lean lines, as spare and fine as the inner workings of a watch. The autor of fifteen books of poetry, five books of essays, and hundreds of scientific papers, Holub travels throughtout the world as both scientist and poet, but he makes his home in Prague, Czechoslovakia"" - Literary Cavalcade. ""The book offers poems interspersed with prose reminiscences of growing up in a particular place at a particular time....Most of these short sketches take locations, people, or activities from Holub's youth and find in their recollection more universal truths"" - Rain Taxi. ""Grounded in razor-sharp observation, deep learning, common sense and charm, Supposed to Fly may be the most important work of antiromanticism since Auden's `The Sea and the Mirror.' Few poets in the English language could read it without a shamed face"" - Times literary Supplement. ... Read more

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An anthology with substantial selections from the whole range of each writer's poetry, as well as intriguing background material. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Miroslav Holub, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1814 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author