The poet, translator, literary critic, public intellectual, and long-time editor of Vilnius Review Marius Burokas is a figure that holds an important place in Lithuania’s cultural landscape. I first learned about him through social media, where he shared photographers’ works, musical discoveries, and drafts of his own translations and poems. Later, Burokas’s social media account […]
The Geography of Turbulent Times Read More »
*** I’ll never have the home I want impossible – my home is books and pictures on the walls and windows opening onto a silent linden-shaded lawn others have such homes on the other side of reality I have forbidden myself from having such a simple home because I know if I were to fall
January The suicidal urges have faded. I lie hidden in my lair. Snow falls heavily, and I know you’re watching it. I’m reading the breviary, mouthing the words as if talking to you. I would like my speech to be noble and beautiful. Something that would sound like love. Insomnia: I hear water drops on
Giedrė Kazlauskaitė Read More »
It was the midwinter of 1999. School was out, but I wasn’t heading home. Me and my best friend walked to the bus stop and got on trolleybus 19 to take the new route Pašilaičiai–Antakalnis, which had been running for only a few months. We were headed to Žvėrynas, up to this day considered a
My Broken European Identity Read More »
GRETA LEIGAITĖ Greta Leigaitė is a student of Lithuanian philology. In her free time, she enjoys doing crafts like knitting and crocheting. She also volunteers at a children’s camp. Her poetry is about everyday life, and she likes to hide behind the mask of ordinary objects. She uses it to express experiences that feel meaningful
Poetry Debuts: Greta Leigaitė, Pijus Opera, Eglė Elena Murauskaitė Read More »
My father called about an hour ago and told me that I have a brother. I don’t trust my father. Once, he returned from a trip in Italy, France, or Malta and gifted me a Polaroid of him standing near some kind of castle surrounded by palm trees, shaking the hand of a tall Black
Deividas Preišegalavičius Read More »
You belong to the same generation, having witnessed, participated, observed, and (re)told the same period and history. When I invited you to join this conversation, I was thinking that in the twenty-first century, we’re more and more affected by the rapid developments in the media, technology, and artificial intelligence, along with the war happening right
Stonemason Love is like a stone. If you heat it up, it stays warm for a while And can seem like the source of the warmth. Love is like a headstone It is shaped and Given a name, the before and after. Everything is a form of love. Many deaths and loves are adorned with
After nearly thirty years since the publication of his first poetry book Rabi, which appeared in 1998 after winning the First Book Contest organized by the Lithuanian Writers’ Union, Mindaugas Kvietkauskas makes a powerful return with his second poetry collection Gruntiniai vandenys (Groundwaters). This book also includes prose-poetry and poetry translations. The texts flow seamlessly
Groundwater Sensibilities Read More »
January 16th, 2021 That piece of paper that had caught V.’s attention at the bus stop, that piece of paper hanging from that grimy advertising board, now firmly gripped between her fingers, was already yellowed, wrinkled like the cheek of an eighty-year-old, repeatedly getting soaked by the rain and then drying. A simple scrap of
Ieva Marija Sokolovaitė Read More »
