Business Can Be Creative Too, With Its Own Preludes and Fugues

Answers to questions from Madam Business (Prosperity supplement, June 2026) and a selection of poems accompanying the interview (July 2026).

Interview for Madam Business, June 2026

You lead a company with a great reputation and create light miracles in nature and in cities, and not only in the Czech Republic. You run a business, yet you find time for yourself too, writing verse and playing the guitar. Can one really manage all that?

I think it is not a matter of time, but mostly of an ordinary human decision. I know many friends who are outstanding professionals with great responsibility, and they too often compensate for the burden, stress or heavy demands of work with some other activity, for example by playing in bands or writing. I think it is something that complements beautifully. These two worlds truly do not exclude one another; on the contrary, they complement each other superbly.

What impulse brought you to poetry? Is it connected with your original profession?

Even as a little girl I turned everything around me into rhymes and little poems; I kept up a constant poetic soliloquy of my own. Later I cultivated it into my first evening of my own work, which I held at the Viola Theatre. Then I decided to study Czech language and literature, believing in my dream. Until then I had in fact served literature in the most beautiful way possible. I taught my students to love it, I taught them to read and to write. To this day I keep, as a memento, some of the anthologies from our creative writing, by authors who are perhaps well known now.

Do you not shy away from opening the little gate to your emotions, feelings, dreams, imaginings? If you ever did, what helped you overcome it?

I probably do not hold back; I have no problem sharing my feelings, emotions and experiences. I have always done so. I have always been willing to put myself at stake – that probably belongs to my star sign and temperament. I was not afraid to stand by my opinions even at times when it was not comfortable. On the other hand, all my life I have suffered a little from a lack of self-confidence, so writing too is a bit of therapy; by naming things one accepts responsibility for what has been said, and that is necessary throughout life.

And what does poetry give you? Calm, moments just for yourself, does it lower your adrenaline and stress? Does it take your mind elsewhere, is it a way of resting?

Poetry is creation in the widest sense of the word; it is not only verses. It is a state of spirit, and the most beautiful poetry is the unwritten kind. As J. Seifert once said in his acceptance speech, the lyrical state of spirit restores rationality to our civilisation. In other words, he wanted to convey that art and poetry answer the fundamental questions of life in an aesthetic way, whereas philosophy answers them with reason. Both of these worlds thus reveal the fundamental ontological questions, in which the world is truly in itself and for itself. Imaginative thinking is important not only for artists; it is essential for perceiving the world as a whole.

And how do verses go together with numbers, statements, growth in turnover and the duties that belong to business?

Numbers are not merely the language of mathematics; the harmony of numbers has accompanied us since antiquity as a certain view of the world. Mathematics and philosophy are worlds that are immensely close to each other; we separated them only in modern thought. Numbers accompany the oldest ideas about how the world came to be, and also music and poetry. Mathematics, in short, is composition, and it enters into philosophy, music, poetry… Even business can be creative; it too has its preludes and fugues.

Poems amplified or given form by light – could that be done? Is some such slightly personal project coming?

I carry a poetic view of the world within me and probably will never be rid of it. Light remains for me a very important symbol of creation and of knowing. I still feel the need to remind us that going towards the true light, with all one's unfinishedness, is still just as urgent a question. Light, like education, must transform us. Last year we wanted to bring this closer to the Heart of Europe, and we are preparing more interesting exhibitions with which I want not only to illuminate but also to enlighten. I confess that one more lovely idea of this kind is looking for its form. But with some exhibitions I am already realising my dreams a little, and judging by their reception, it is possible that visitors recognised it.

Selection of poems accompanying the interview, July 2026

Intercession

And then a silence that does not stay mute
settles into our memory.
Words grow heavy under their own weight
and there is no one to hold them back
behind our walls.
And you cannot erase his footprints,
even if the wind changes direction.

Rails

You will never see
through the tall grass
to the beginning
of two parallels
stretching in the sun
The rumble of the rails
like the beating of a heart
is the direction
from where
we set out

Into Joy

In your open palm
you carry the whole world
only you do not know it
lest you scare away
the pain
without which there would be no
direction
into joy
complete

Now

A second like eternity
I open my palm
You spread your Wings
I bless

Snowflake

In the white silence
time can be heard settling
As if it had returned
from somewhere far away
And yet familiar
You enter with it unrecognised
with the tenderness of words scattered
into hope
you do not know
whether you may
hang prayers
on the strings of days
like beads

Published in: Madam Business, 6 August 2026.