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| Translated by Agnieška Leščinska | |
Lina Buividavičiūtė. kelionių (journeys). Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla, 2024, p. 72.
“What a great idea for a book that is, to write about
How we make ourselves sick.
And then we become famous.”
(“Narcizai” [“Narcissus”])
Lina Buividavičiūtė (b. 1986) is a poet and the author of three successful confessional poetry books. She’s also a participant in literary readings. When she made her debut, she voiced an important phrase: we must “be as we are.” How could it be otherwise? Yet, in her poetry, this statement is far from straightforward. Since her debut collection, Helsinkio sindromas (Helsinki Syndrome, 2017), Buividavičiūtė’s work has stood out for its fearless honesty about vulnerability, depression, and the difficulties of motherhood. She wrote about topics that, for a long time, weren’t usually discussed in public. That’s why what is considered to be the norm of existence in her poetry has sparked discussions among readers.
Today, readers are more mindful when reading confessional poetry. Buividavičiūtė’s work naturally aligns with what I call the “empathy shift.” It’s a movement that has influenced Lithuanian poetry over the past decade, urging society to focus more on mental health and fostering greater awareness. In art, experiences that we once kept in the shadows have resurfaced, and now it’s recommended to better acknowledge the post-Soviet traumas and their consequences as well as not to overlook mental health struggles.
The speaker in Buividavičiūtė’s poetry, a modern woman who recognizes traces of her deportee grandmother within herself and struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder, responds to these themes in her own way. By highlighting the roles of both an actively engaged poet and a family woman, Buividavičiūtė brings the drama of a vulnerable woman into the public eye, draws attention to societal expectations, and even magnifies mental illness to almost pathological extremes (see the poem “Trumeno” [“Truman”]).
No other Lithuanian writer has so extensively reflected collective trauma in poetry. It’s surprising that in her work human darkness is not treated metaphorically, but instead it’s firmly linked to real-life experiences, which she reveals with the help of psychological suggestiveness and conversational language. By doing so, her poetry revives a classic literary function, which gives voice to what has been suppressed, with the help of empathy and forging new meanings.
Her third book, kelionių (journeys), is built on this understanding. In Lithuanian, the title seems like a wish for more journeys to happen, to explore other cultures and broaden horizons. At the same time, it sounds like an unfinished phrase. When hearing the word by itself, we usually want to finish it, for example, “returning from the journeys” or “the experiences of the journeys.” This ambiguity is truly symbolic. In Buividavičiūtė’s poetry, imagery of exotic journeys serves only as a background, accentuating past experiences. This is why rather than seeking new horizons, we dive into the subconscious, unpacking the burdens carried along the way. The routes in her poetry are shaped not just by personal experience and family history but also by the impact of media, cultural narratives, and dreams. This invites the reader to ask: What experiences go on a journey within you? Is it possible to ever truly know yourself? What does it mean to be yourself?
So far, Buividavičiūtė’s work has moved through several phases of confessional poetry: therapeutic, theatrical, and now what she calls the stage of “recognition.” In Lithuanian, the words išpažinti (“to confess,” as in confessional poetry) and atpažinti (“to recognize”) share the same root but have different meanings. Recognition poetry is a response to poetry enjoyers who interpret confessional poetry as nothing more than poets being self-centered and pouring out their personal grievances. For Buividavičiūtė, recognition is a poetic method in which personal experience serves as a collective mirror and reflects aspects of the reader’s own identity back at them. On the other hand, the speaker in her poems is almost compulsively drawn to this mirror, searching for her reflection in the “screens” of memories, films, and books. But do reflections that we see reveal the whole truth or merely different versions of it?
When the speaker talks about female vulnerability, it reminds me of the delicate surface of water, which is outwardly calm but easily disturbed by various influences. Buividavičiūtė’s poetry reveals that these depths are difficult to fathom – that’s why the unexpected encounters with yourself become a recurring theme in her poems. In much of her work, the poet engages in a dangerous game of empathy, speaking of another’s pain as if it were her own and viewing her own suffering as part of a larger picture. In this way, the speaker would challenge the Lithuanian proverb that claims “a stranger’s pain doesn’t exist.” Pain multiplies, spreads, and takes root when we become its intermediary. However, this is not the plea of a victim seeking pity; rather, it is a tool for self-awareness and for normalizing that awareness in everyday life. And in the context of journeys, this process becomes an attempt to see a version of yourself reflected in other cultures (see the poem “Atspėk moters vardą” [“Guess the Woman’s Name”]) or it’s used as a remedy for pain (see the poem “KelioniųI”[“Journey I”]). In this way, Buividavičiūtė’s portrayal of female vulnerability is deceptive because it’s both a way to open yourself up but also a way to consciously shield yourself. What she expresses is unsettling, at times even drastic.
One of the most intriguing aspects of this poetry is the speaker’s constant awareness of the “self-establishing gaze.” This gaze emerges from the expectations and ingrained standards of judgment placed on women, whether as poets, mothers, or representatives of their gender. As long as these external judgments exist, a crucial message of poetry becomes the woman’s ability to speak about herself. It’s no surprise that for the poetry, which is based on the idea that it should “be as it is,” even egocentrism transforms into a poetic message. This is why speaking becomes not only intimate or exposing, but it also challenges what makes a poem “good” or “authentic.”
What struck me the most in “journeys” were the poems that approach the reader almost stealthily. While reading her poems, I realize that it’s not the speaker’s inner monologue, but a conversation directed at me instead. This is because Buividavičiūtė’s poetry operates on two levels at the same time. It invites us to understand its raw, unembellished content. At the same time, it seems to anxiously watch our reaction, to try vocalizing them and to harden itself. Her poetry even confesses its own flaws, diagnosing impostor syndrome and narcissism before we have the chance to do so ourselves (see the poem “Trumeno” [“Truman”]).
Discovering this kind of dynamic between poet and reader was unexpected. It turns many of her poems into a kind of stage used not just for discussing neuroses and social roles but also making everyone participate in them, even if that participation is as simple as evaluating the poem or reflecting on our response to it. Once again, poetry becomes a space not only for exploring pain but for conversation as well. And that is important not just in thinking about healing from trauma but also in confronting the stereotypes that literature so often carries.
