The poet, actress, screenwriter, digital artist, and journalist with the pseudonym Ave Aburh, a play on words (read backwards), published her fourteenth collection of poems in 2017 under the title Giddiness. Recently, we had the opportunity to experience an authorial evening with her, which she attended at the invitation of the talk show producer Vlastimil Venclík at the popular art Old Town Hall in Prague.
Film and theatre scriptwriter, playwright and actor Vlastimil Venclík in the programme "Reading Theatre, my friends series" introduced Eva Hruba to the audience not only as her long-time colleague and a constant on the Czech art scene, so to speak, from Aš to Beskydy, but also as the author of a new collection of poems, which should see the light of day this year. The working title is Coarse subtleties or a blackened poem. An evening of stories about her life and especially the recitation of three blocks of Eva's current poems drew a standing ovation from the audience.
One of the guests of the evening was Jiří Štěpnička, a member of the National Theatre in Prague, who praised Eva Hruba as an excellent performer and poet. He also offered to perform in a poetic programme that Eva would write and together they would perform it either at the Malostranská beseda or at the famous Viola poetry theatre, as the publicist Pavel Klicpera informed his readers in the Nymburk daily.
The entire evening was filmed by a crew of young filmmakers associated in the project Memoria artis, which maps the life and work of personalities of Czech culture in the form of film documentaries. Filming with the author began on this very day and the hour-long documentary will map all the activities and environment in which Eva lives and works.
I'm writing to set myself on fire...
...says in the short afterword of his fourteenth collection of poetry Giddiness Ave, or Eva, to her readers...
"I don't know if it's my place
telling yourself:
poet, writer, author, actor, director, artist.
I'm not them,
only the creator of the reflections of life
consisting of
of words, images, voice, movement."
Curriculum vitae
Eva Hrubá was born in Nymburk, Central Bohemia, on 19 June 1951. She graduated from the Ježek Conservatory. In the late seventies she rubbed her authorial scabs in newspapers and magazines (Tvorba, Literární měsíčník, Mladá fronta, etc.) and also in the editorial office of the local district newspaper Nymbursko. She began publishing in books with the collection Just once first, among the following titles we would like to mention Stumbling or the cardiogram of a fool, Love is when or A second of the moment.
In body and soul she was and is, this once rising district star and today a star of national importance, a successful canoeist, winner of several medals from the National Championships in speed canoeing. It was only a serious illness that put the brakes on her sporting career, but despite the lasting health effects, Eva did not grieve. On the contrary. Both sport and illness taught her not to throw the paddle, i.e. the quiver, into the rye. She knows the art of will and the art of winning, above all with herself, and it gave her the desire to go forward despite all possible obstacles. She hasn't given up on boating either and is still training at the Nymburk boathouse, where she has many friends.
Just like on the Nymburk stages of the Hálk Theatre, which means the world, where she has excelled as an actress, writer and director for many years. Together with other Czech theatres, she has more than three thousand original performances to her credit Today, she performs recitals together with the singer Lida Žembery. Her radio shows with a philosophical-psychological subtext "To the marrow" and her social media posts are equally popular. Since she has artistic vision and is a good photographer, Eva Hrubá started experimenting with a new direction, digital painting of abstract images. She is doing well here too, see the applause she received at her recent third exhibition of paintings in Prague's Šatlava. But let's return to her poetic work...
Tender Eva Hrubá
In the words of the classic, she is no stranger to anything human and in her poetry she captures Life with all its nuances of good and evil. She has abundant experience with love and so she often writes about it. She started using the pseudonym Ave Aburh more than a decade ago when she was angry at her name, because after all, she is not rude...
He has a rich vocabulary and is able to express himself using simile and metaphor, which, after all, is part of the basic armament of every poet. But in addition, he works with the so-called second canvas and masters the art of punchline, which is not given to every writer to a sufficient degree. Her poems make us think and not just consume.
In his new, fifteenth title, aptly titled Coarse subtleties or a blackened poemwhich will be published in time for her birthday cake with seventy-five candles, sort of takes stock in separate poetic sections under their own titles. The past on a hanger, Hospital of Fools, On drops of wax, Coarse subtleties. The work is crowned with a section Sincerely, which hides the author's images that correspond with the text. In short, the publication is a book of poems, prose poems, aphorisms and digital art.
After the book's publication, literary critics will surely discuss how Eva Hrubá captures the world in all its nakedness. And that in The past on a hanger combines the time of ancient times, the personal time and the time of all of us with the present time, the time of love and the time of separation, the time we live and create. Hospital of Fools is thoughtfully set in mythological parables about contemporary interpersonal relationships. Here the author characterizes human qualities through catharsis and drama to the point of departure. On drops of wax this is a lighter part of the book, namely the love poems. The coarse subtleties then contain aphorisms, thoughts, opinions and exaggerations.
He who is not lazy is green
Eva Hrubá's creative harvest is more than rich. A bibliography of her works would take up an entire print page. So the list of books, including the author's participation in anthologies and almanacs, is only telegraphed:
Eva Hrubá, originally a rehabilitation nurse, entered literature in 1981, when Mladá fronta published a unique collection of new Czech poetry in a volume of emerging authors. Twenty-two other joint collections followed. Worth mentioning, among others, are Ladies Ride, which is a portrait of a generation of Czech women poets (Chmarová, Albrechtová, Brixi, Frantinová, Hrubá, etc.). The last one published in 2023 was a collection Poetry by Czech and international authors 23where Hrubá presented herself together with such names as Jiří Žáček.
Her first book of poems was published in 1983 under the title KOH-I-NOOR, followed by collections Laughing after Tears of Laughter, The Unseen, The Thistle on the Thistle or with Desire on the Sole or Love is when, A second of the momentor last but not least The line of the vertigo - a book about us or 22 steps to ourselves. In the CD recording by Jan Vávra Studio Exiled Angel... poetic concert with music by Radek Svoboda.
The long, long series of events and author readings on the radio, Viola or Rubín by Eva Hrubá can hardly be listed in the short space of the lines allotted for this article. Galleries, clubs, cultural centres, small theatre venues, cinemas, but also chapels and churches - everywhere it is possible to meet Eva Hruba and her artistic work and acting.
Her fifteenth anniversary collection is currently in the works, and we will announce the time and place of the launch to our esteemed readers. But that will be the subject of another article.
gnews.cz - Ivan Černý
PHOTO - Eva Hrubá archive
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