Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Vagabond Sun: Selected Poems

Vagabond Sun: Selected Poems

Vaiciunaite, Judita
Uzgiris, Rimas

Paperback

General Poetry

ISBN10: 1848616201
ISBN13: 9781848616202
Publisher: Shearsman Books
Published: Oct 26 2018
Pages: 108
Weight: 0.37
Height: 0.26 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

In the post-war period, when most poets in Lithuania were writing about politics, or when they were focusing their lyricism on the pastoral, Judita Vaičiūnaite (1937-2001), without ignoring either politics or her bonds with nature, became a poet of the city. Instead of paeans to forest and farm, we find flowers growing out of cracks on the sidewalks, trees dropping their petals over garbage heaps, and run-down buildings overcome with a rich luxuriance of weeds. Instead of tradition-bound country life, we encounter the cosmopolitan woman discovering herself in cafes, cramped Soviet apartments, and labyrinthine streets. This thematic concern is connected to her style of sharp and sudden contrasts and juxtapositions. Tender lyricism is cut with violence and foreboding. Randomness, sudden change, and danger form parts of her poetic experience as much as the beautiful facade, the church bells, and the cobbled streets. Vaičiūnaite's city is also the locus of her exploration of the modern woman's identity: single, educated, working, free. There are poems of love and poems of struggle against the restraints of a patriarchal world, of conflicts between the freedom and power to seek her own career path and the responsibilities of motherhood. Nevertheless, Vaičiūnaite did not disconnect herself from her country's past, writing lyrical poems from the perspective of historical and mythological figures. Notably, her personages are often woman. As a result, the voices of Lithuanian history and myth have never been richer.

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