"Devětsil" (Nine Powers, or Colt's Foot, the early spring flower) is a Radical group orienting towards Moscow where Lunacharsky fathers the new Proletcult. This group is uncompromisingly Marxian, propagates the idea of Proletcult, and stands for Revolution. But youthful enthusiasm has so far evaded the domination of the dogma and there are one or two poets whose work is worth mention: Seifert and Černík. Although not the best of the group, Jiři Wolker represents a leavening influence. He is a typical example of what I like to call the "emerging peasant" bringing a smell of the soil into the coffee-house. He has published three small volumes of poems, The Guest in the House, Heavy Hours, The Highest Sacrifice, and two plays, The Hospital and The Grave. But there is not one among these proletarian poets so forceful, so bitter, and so dynamic as that young German poet and dramatist, Ernst Toller, who is now in prison for his share in the Munich Revolution.
The "Literary Group" publishes a monthly journal, Host (The Guest) and in their latest manifesto they attempt to steer a middle course between the purely proletarian and bourgeois art. Götze, the intellectual leader and critic of this group, has a book in the press, Anarchy in the New Czech Poetry.
Karel Vaněk, an ambitious young man, has established a literary journal, Kmen (The Trunk, of a tree) which is about the size of The Little Review. It is open to young writers and painters of any nationality. He would be glad to receive any American work (I do not know if there is any payment attached); address Karel Vaněk, 42 Palackehe Nábřeži, Prague.
The ignorance of contemporary American work here is almost criminal; and some of those poets who go tramping in the Rockies might do worse than make a journey in this direction; even if they have to blow their own trumpets and pay for their suppers by reciting their own poetry.
The Czech cultural life is helped by the comparative stability of the Czech economic conditions (how long these will last I cannot say) but at present the fact remains that the people have plenty of money to buy books and pictures, and to patronize the theatres and concerts, while a few hours away poor cultured Vienna is dying.
