… The skill of a good medium lies in the ability to focus fully and at the same time step away from the self. Jana Orlová is without doubt a good medium, and this intensifies the uniqueness of her work.
…Performance is living natura muerta. A dynamic still life of a figure in a psychic landscape.
Darina Alster
“The central topic of the poetry book is a relationship between a man and a woman. With this topic, we would expect (and would be willing to withstand) poems that are strongly lyrical, poetic, emotional. In Újedě, however, the opposite is true: the short poems use very few imagery techniques, the texts seem impersonal, though they are usually in the first person. The author prefers contrast to reflection. Objectivity and impersonality are emphasised by the choice of register; words like “fuck” or “cock” do not seem vulgar, but rather alienated. There is no love – there is a sexual relationship. The lover has no positive characteristics, except for the fact that he’s a good “fuck”.
In contrast to the above, the poems in Újedě are in fact very intimate. Their striking corporeality and absolute openness (important themes include bodily orifices, intake and excretion, pain) seems to correspond with Jana Orlová’s work as a performer, in which her own body – in its intimacy, restrictions and desires – is one of the elementary modes of expression. The woman is both the újeď (i.e. bait in hunter’s terminology) and an objective observer: “in my life I am a foreigner / an observer of my body.” She can be cynical, ironic, mean.
Karel Škrabal refers to Orlová as a hunter, a predator lying in wait for her prey. But she herself is also hurt, affected (“What I cannot wash off / I will scratch off with one wave”), the collection speaks of grief, of abandonment in the unwelcoming environment of hotel rooms and snack bars, of a lack of fulfillment. The author avoids demonstrative provocation, as well as moralising, judging and asking for compassion. One also cannot interpret the collection as (only) a testimony of the times, reducing relationships to non-commital fucking about.
What is perhaps more important is what we can reflect on when reading Jana Orlová’s bare, cut back, but also semantically ambiguous and ultimately very striking lines: various forms of love (of course), intimacy and corporeality (what we reveal, what we conceal), relationships to others and to ourselves (here too we reveal and conceal), our own strengths and weaknesses, and the limits of the freedom we are willing or able to give ourselves.”
Andrea Popelová (from review of poetry book Újedě in Host magazine 8/2017)
The poetry book Sniff the Fire by Jana Orlová makes it clear that the author knows how the word operates in poetry. It is as though she senses how each word creates a delicate force field that fills the spaces between. The balance between the said and the unsaid is experienced naturally, the inclination to describe phenomena as they appear disappears. Instead, experience itself arises and reveals phenomena for what they are. I find this rare. In addition, the alternation of the Yin and Yang of the unsaid and said in textual form creates tensions and innovative combinations that force us to return to the poems.
Ladislav Puršl (from review of poetry book Sniff the Fire in Host magazine 4/2013)
MIRCEA DAN DUTA. Challenge-ul ca element de performance SAU Facerea de bine nu rămâne nerăsplătită nici măcar în creația Janei Orlová
https://citestema.ro/challenge-ul-ca-element-de-performance-sau-facerea-de-bine-nu-ramane-nerasplatita-nici-macar-in-creatia-janei-orlova/?
RAFAŁ RÓŻEWICZ, Pozostała dosłowność (Jana Orlová, „Nie uciekniesz“), https://magazynwizje.pl/aktualnik/rozewicz-orlova