Jana Orlová, Czech Republic

Jana Orlová, Czech Republic 

Member of IWA Bogdani 

Jana Orlová (1986) is a poet and a performer . She published “Čichat oheň” („Sniff the Fire“)

with her own illustrations at Pavel Mervart publishing house in 2012 and “Újedě” her second book

of poetry at Větrné Mlýny publishing house in 2017. Her works appeared in “Nejlepší české básně”

( Best Czech Poems) at Host publishing house. Her poems were translated into Romanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Hindi, Spanish, English and Arabic. She published a poetry book in Ukrainian and Romanian in 2019. She treats performance art as living poetry. She gained the “Objev roku 2017” Breakthrough Act Award 2017 at Next Wave Festival for “crossing the boundaries of literature, fine art and theatre naturally and with ease”. Her work is to be seen at www.janaorlova.cz. She is a chief editor of art and culture column of Polipet.cz 

***

I am the one who asks the devils

I listen to their belching maliciously

I stop in speech just like that

so that breath doesn’t recognize the pause I love

hell like bread and butter

I tear intellect in the inward direction

light and cold like in an open office

as a child I did not understand why

I am not a man better than a man

is only a witch

***

Falling in love overturning

myself

Struggles in stopping the pulse

and consciousness dizzyingly high

Falling in love opening

a man with a knife

***

I take love and squeeze it like a pulpy fruit,

yellow, juicy, perhaps slightly over-ripe,

seeds flow over my absent hands.

I take love and I don’t know what to do with it, possibilities,

bored by attention and apparent ease,

yes, overly self serving, satiated to the brim.

I hold it by the hips and feel its genitalia

exorcism still hasn’t ended, I laugh.

I tolerate meat, I breathe dry moss