Děčín. The lowest-lying town in the Czech Republic. The Pearl on the Elbe. And on its shore, a periscope. Not of a submarine, but of poetry. And of music, prose, or local legends. The Děčín Poesiomat on Smetana’s waterfront recites poems by Vladimír and Václav Vokolek, Radek Fridrich, Tomáš Řezníček, Marcel Deli, Bronislava Volková, Alice Prajzentová, and Radek Kolínský.
The poetic periscope sounds like old steamships sailing down the Elbe to Germany. Or it plays the Děčín Waltz, composed by Fryderyk Chopin at the castle on the rock above the Poesiomat.
It speaks to passersby in the voices of two beloved Czech actors and Děčín natives, Jiří Maryška and Jan Nedbal. Short poetic gems were contributed to the Děčín pipe by David Vávra, recordings of Děčín’s elderly residents were provided by the organization Memory of the Nation, and winners of the annual Vladimír Vokolek Literary Award also found their place in the poetic speaker.