We are living in a time marked by a pervasive sense of looming catastrophe – of an approaching end of the world. Yet this feeling is hardly new in Lithuanian literature. From the interwar poetry of Jonas Aistis, who evoked the image of a “dying Europe,” to Tomas Venclova’s visions of forgotten utopian enclaves in […]
What if It Never Ends? Read More »
Acceptance Speech for the Most Creative Book of the Year, 2025 given by the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore First, I am grateful to the community of literary scholars and writers (who are so closely intertwined in our country that, I think, I will not be mistaken in addressing you in this way)
Poetry Needs Resistance: The Resistance of the World Read More »
Rimantas Kmita is the author of two poetry collections, two works of literary criticism, two plays, and three novels. The plays and novels are all set in the tumultuous years around Lithuania’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. The first novel, Pietinia Kronikas (Southside Chronicle) became a best-seller and won multiple awards.
Chapter 1 He was standin’ right in front of me. He took off his Adidas sweatshirt… He came up to our table. To try on a sweater. The market’s full of sweaters and they’re all the same, all the same
I remember that bright, unusually warm autumn day. Gazing out the window, I saw Jonas and other workers fixing the road. It was the first time I paused to think how strange it was that none of them sat in class with us. There weren’t many of them in the city. Whenever I spotted one
In the Petal Skirt-folds all the darkness of this world is steeping within the skirt-folds of petals Escherichia coli Fusobacterium nucleatum Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis billions of bacteria live inside us it takes one, under certain circumstances at a certain time, and we are killed by an invisible odorless unportended organism my husband says he believes
* I had a total of six hours and twenty minutes to spend at Warsaw airport that time. I don’t like layovers – especially indirect flights – so I spent a whole month preparing for this wait, planning what I could do to keep myself occupied. I knew it would be one of those transitional
It is interesting to observe the increasingly personal nature of Lithuanian poetry and its various expressions and themes – to observe how the poetic tradition has changed since the mid-twentieth century, when Aesopian language replaced Soviet realism, or when irony permeated the public discourse. Later, postmodern games appeared, which are now almost entirely replaced by
There’s no place like home Read More »
Tomas Venclova, the esteemed poet, scholar, and translator, has just released his third collection of poetry in English translation. So in addition to Winter Dialogue (1997, Northwestern University Press, tr. Diana Senechal) and The Junction (2008, Bloodaxe Books, tr. Senechal and Ellen Hinsey), we now have The Grove of the Eumenides. This time, I had
Whatever Else, Speak: An Interview with Tomas Venclova Read More »
*** I don’t recall without a doubt, Perhaps a woman’s words: don’t cry. That’s all. Candles snuffed out. Arnas, you can open your eyes. But I’m running with my eyes closed. I’m late, and can’t remember to where. And the snow – the snow falls composed In A minor shifting to C major with flair.
