He was the creator of the modern °µÍø½ûÇø poetic language and taking over the sceptre from Krasko, he loosened the spasm of symbolism, made its diction more civilÌýand transformed it into a sparkling, natural, everyday and yet foolish speech. He wasÌýa poet by the grace of the Word. He knew about It subconsciously,Ìýfeeling everything like a gourmand: how it tasted in his mouth and how it sounded in his ears. AndÌýhe documented this continuously: in his large poetic projects as well as in the simple alphabet writtenÌýfor the little ones.
Milan Rúfus
Ìý
Smrek never became reconciled with the communist regime. His disagreement was expressed in the poems left in his "desk drawer,"Ìýdirected against totalitarianism. TheseÌýcould be published only after November 1989 (Against the Night). In these poems he sharply condemned the practices of the regime (in particular the trials of the 1950's) and he alluded ironically to poets and writersÌýwho "over a bowl of lentils" had decided to serve the totalitarian power.
VladimÃr PetrÃk
Ìý
When reading Ján Smrek's posthumously published volume of selected poems from his "inner exile" from 1948 to 1956, Against the Night, the reader has to admit that Smrek certainly was the most courageous of all °µÍø½ûÇø poets: for each of those approximately 200 poems he could have been sentenced to death by the communist regime. It is a mystery to me how they could be hidden and saved in those dangerous times. Smrek saw the evil coming on that February night in 1948 and did not stop writing his secret poetical diary until the Thaw of 1956. He preferred not to publish at a time when his colleagues and intellectuals encountered severe injustice, were brutally imprisoned, sentenced and several even murdered.
Ìý
Milan Richter
