Abstract
The book called Jorge Listopad and František Listopad's Rosa Definitiva is intended in particular for Portuguese audience who are familiar with
Jorge Listopad's work for film, theatre and in prose, but are not acquainted with his poetry.
His poems are extraordinary and very strongly linked to his private life to an extent that is unmatched in other authors. They represent a spe- cific form of non-linear diary where entries are written as memories and associations across time, states and political regimes in Europe. Listopad also called his most famous collection of poems, Rosa Definitiva, published in 2007, a testament of sorts and his very last collection of poems. However, already on the book's pages he hinted at a possibility that more poems and collections would follow. He published his last collection of poems in 2012 aged 91.
What is, however, most important is the fact that the poems were not penned by Jorge, but by František. While Jorge was a world-reknowned theatre and TV director of Czech origin, František Listopad was a Czech poet who from time to time wrote a short story. František wrote his poems exclusively in Czech and did not wish to have them translated to other languages, not even his beloved Portuguese, which became his second mother tongue after he had spent many years in Portugal. The Czech lan- guage, which he was not able to use much during his 70 years in exile, first in France and later in Portugal, became his intimate secret language. The language of confession, of poetry that rejoices over successes and happiness, which cries over failures, that remembers childhood, whispers about love and shouts about wrongs. But the voice of František Listopad was never a political one that would criticize political regimes or defend ideologies. It was a voice filled with philosophical thinking and love of life. It celebrated everydayness, a simple life brimming with extraordinary events.