Jonas Zdanys’s The Angled Road: Collected Poems 1970-2020 covers the astonishing career of a well-known poet. After all, fifty years of anything—marriage, employment— is quite an accomplishment, and in our world today, just living that long is getting more impressive by the hour. As with any anniversary of such magnitude, a celebration is in order, and mostly […]
Even relatively recently, there were, from time to time, voices in the discourse of literary criticism sighing hopelessly about the present and future of Lithuanian short fiction. Due to a scarcity of published works, the identity and evolution of the Lithuanian short story has been elusive. Be that as it may, over the last decade,
A Renaissance of Lithuanian Short Fiction? Read More »
The early twentieth century analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is perhaps best known for his provocative statement: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Despite the poetic nature of the aphorism itself (rhyme, repetition, rhythm, parallelism), it does pose an existential challenge for a lyric poet—one who strives to give words and form to
“Exiled Home”: A Review of North of Paradise by Rimas Uzgiris Read More »
Some are drawn to leave home, wander the world, in and out of cultures, passing through periods of time by means of humanity’s written heritage, even composing hymns out of wonder at life’s myriad joys and sorrows. Kerry Shawn Keys has been one such orphic wanderer. From his start in rural Pennsylvania, to the Ivy
Orphic Wanderings, Darkling Soil: On Black Ice by Kerry Shawn Keys Read More »
The Creature To protect my image, how’s that possible now, floating in the measured saltwater of this outdoor, special admission aquarium, my tutelary Gods wagering bets above as though their pet raven and dove were each a haruspex, and my body Noah’s boat. I can’t escape this worldly exhibition. There’s no gate, and anyway the
translated by Rimas Uzgiris video by Jevgenij Tichonov organized by Saulius Vasiliauskas Copyright: Vilnius Review All rights reserved
Ramunė Brundzaitė – Next Stop: Red Cross Read More »
The poet, architect, and traveller Tomas S. Butkus (Slombas) rarely has work published, but when his books appear, they turn into an event. Ežerožemė (Lakeland), written from 1997 to 2020, reveals that Butkus’s poetry has absorbed a fair dose of the sweeping spirit typical of the first ten years of Lithuania’s independence. In the early 1990s,
A Modern Poetic Atlas Read More »
Aquarium By The River we don’t have to wade into the river to take mouthfuls of blue so blindingly distant belonging to the time when water was vision Mingė’s Poem no one sits in the barge any longer just rampant motors of arthropoda tapping at the window-sill of a grocery spiders picking up bottles
translated by Rimas Uzgiris video by Jevgenij Tichonov organized by Saulius Vasiliauskas Copyright: Vilnius Review All rights reserved
Tomas S. Butkus – Men Read More »
evening at the grandparents’ house, I enter the room press the switch and the graveyards will no longer be lit, press it press it, you can’t predict anything, just press this white button, this almost invisible button, here where stairs lead to the loft, and alien feet swiftly run off maybe it’s a post-war child, head
