>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Grant Harris: Ladies and
gentlemen, welcome to the Library
of Congress and to this event,
Latvian Literature on the Verge.
I am Grant Harris.
I am head of this reading room,
the European reading room,
and the Library is very pleased
to sponsor this event today
in partnership with
the Embassy of Latvia.
I'm very pleased to have here
today a good friend of the library,
that would be Ambassador Razans
and in a few minutes I will
have him speak up here as well
but I have a few more
things to say before that.
Very briefly let me say that
the Library of Congress is proud
of its more than 20,000 printed
volumes from or about Latvia.
We believe this is one of the
largest collections outside
of Latvia of Latvian materials.
In addition to printed volumes we
have lots of music, lots of maps,
photographs and other materials.
Each year we're getting
over 250 volumes from Latvia
of the best research materials
and the best literature.
I'm also proud that we have in the
library works by all of the writers
who will be up here on
the podium today as well
as by the moderator
today, Andrew Springer.
We have his work as well.
Regina Frackowiak is our
reference specialist for Latvia.
She has compiled a
handout that tells us
about the library's
Latvian collections.
It includes Regina's
contact information.
If you want a copy of
that, Regina has them.
There's Regina, and the handout
is in blue so if you want
that you have her contact
information.
If you want to use the collections
she can help you with that.
You're always welcome,
anyone is welcome
to come use the library's
collections.
We hope you enjoy the Latvian
readings and discussion today.
We're really pleased to have these
fine poets and authors with us.
We hope you'll come back.
I think all of you have
made this event possible,
especially the Latvian
Embassy and the Ambassador.
So I would now like to invite
to the podium His Excellency,
Ambassador Razans.
>> Ambassador Andris Razans:
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
it's very honored to be
among all of you today here.
It's one of the most magnificent
libraries in the world,
perhaps the most significant these
days and it's always great pleasure
and enjoyment to return, to the
library, not only to read the books
but to make very good
friends and people
that are working here at library.
It's a very special day
for me and for our Embassy.
It's first time, as far as I know,
that we have put together
an event totally dedicated
to Latvian contemporary
literature, poetry, prose,
translation into English.
And I'm very glad that we put
this event together and I hope
that we'll have nice and
very enjoyable afternoon,
or beginning of the afternoon.
My very warm thanks and all
my gratitude really goes
to Mr. Grant Harris and his
wonderful staff here at the library,
European division at the
library, with whom we have managed
to develop very close and good ties.
And I think these ties
definitely are here to stay
and they will not evaporate.
I'm very pleased for that.
As Ambassador of Latvia to
United States I would like to say
that usually relations between
countries, between two countries,
between United States and Latvia,
are translated or interpreted
by means of interests,
either political interests
or economical interests.
But I should say that these
interests, they are not eternal.
Political economic interest
are changing from time to time
as we know that, because
of our very tense,
sometimes very difficult history
of our century, but culture,
literature, art, these
are the values that stay
and without these values, without
culture, without literature,
I think the relations between
states, between everything as well
between U.S. and Latvia,
would be less, less meaningful
and I'm very pleased really that
we put together today's reading
of Latvian literature here
at the Library of Congress.
Relations between both states very
soon will enter its centenary.
It's not only about Latvia as
independent state in two year's time
as 100 years old country
but our relations
with United States
a little bit later
as well will enter its
very, very serious age.
Quantity, it's important.
It's really something we can really
focus, we can really try to analyze.
And I should say that these
relations have been mostly very
dynamic, very active.
Of course we have had as well more
silent periods in our relations
because of well-known dramas in
our history, the Soviet occupation,
but U.S. never recognized
the Baltic Occupation.
The Baltic States always were
legally in very existence
and I think that creates a
very, very positive background
for what we are doing in
our relations these days.
And when we discuss literature,
when we bring more singers, artists,
writers to United States, and I hope
that more American writers, singers
and artists will be visiting
Latvia as well, I think we send
up a different message about Latvia
as a state, especially these days
when Europe, we are
so much preoccupied
with geopolitical tensions, with
changing security environment
in Europe, I think it
would be wrong to assume
that that's the only thing
people on earth are living
and breathing and thinking of.
We still are living in
decent democratic societies,
vibrant societies where it's
bright and good future respectfully
of changes in Europe these days
and I'm glad we are able to,
by means of literature, by means of
art, to send this message of Latvia
as European, state as progressive
and state that has very good future.
And here I'd like to end.
And once more thank you
so much Harris and Library
of Congress for the event.
And I would like to
invite the moderator
and your singer to open the reading.
Thanks so much.
>> Andrew Springer: Thanks
to the Library of Congress
and to the staff here
for setting this up.
It's a great privilege and
a great pleasure to be here.
And thank you to Mr. Ambassador
as well for those remarks.
But I have a literary foundation,
that's what I'm doing here.
And for me everyone that's
on the program today is
a kind of Ambassador.
I got to know Latvian culture not
through the politics initially
but through the literature
and that was also great joy
and great privilege.
So the three people that are
assembled here on this program
to me really stand out as tremendous
representatives of the culture
which is something very special.
And perhaps most of you, many
of you, already know this,
it's my great joy to discover
this last year and mostly
through the people that
will be on the stage today.
The first performer is Nora Ikstena.
And like all of the performers,
all of the writers here today,
they are much more than a writer.
They have such varied roles and have
had such diverse and exciting lives
but are also very representative
of the very best
of Latvian literature today.
Nora has written poetry,
novels, short stories.
She has studied many
different things.
She was here in the
U.S. for a while.
She studied, I believe, at
Columbia University for a while.
She has studied 20th century
literature and philosophy.
She's worked in different
capacities.
She's a cofounder of the Latvian
Literature Center and has been
at times a Seminole figure in
Latvia, not only on the culture
but even in the way on
the political landscape.
But today we're here to enjoy some
of her latest novel, Mother's Milk,
and I think we'll just
ask her up here
and she can introduce that to you.
Nora.
[ Applause ]
>> Nora Ikstena: So
ladies and gentlemen,
I think it's a historical
moment for all of us
and you can't believe how pleased
and how honored we all feel
to be here in Library of Congress.
Today me and my translator,
Margita Gailitis,
will be reading a short excerpt
from my latest novel, Mother's Milk.
And it's kind of symbolical
because it's historical novel
from a very personal point of view.
And this is a first book in series
of books 20th century published
in Latvia and very unique way
how to tell about history.
These are 12 Latvian well known
contemporary prose writers
who are writing books each about
one period of Latvian history.
My book is about time period between
1969 to 1989 which is actually very,
very hard period for Soviet
Latvia, stigmatic times.
But I tried to tell that story
from a very personal point of view
from mother and daughter.
There are two narrators in first
person, mother and daughter,
and that's how they are
living through this hard time.
And Mother's Milk, it's not only
Mother's Milk, it's homelands milk
which we all lost in those times.
And so also for giving life for
Latvian language here in the Library
of Congress I will read a
small excerpt in Latvian
and then Margita will read
the rest excerpt in English.
[ Foreign language ]
And now you will hear the
rest of the excerpt in English
by my translator Margita Gailitis.
Thank you.
>> Margita Gailitis: I'm
very happy to be here
and to read Nora's book in English.
Let me say that the book in a couple
of months has become a bestseller
in Latvia and we've just had
wonderful news from London,
England that a publisher
has accepted the book.
So we will be again in the world.
I'll read the segment, a big
length here, segment in English.
Sometimes after school I headed
for my mother's ambulatory center
and waited for her workday to end.
There was a narrow long
corridor there in which
on benches tightly squished
together always sat many women.
Some of them were pregnant.
My mother tried to devolve as much
time as was necessary to each one
and often meant that she finished
work very late in the evening.
After school I used to prepare some
food and we would then head home
and my mother would eat more
out of politeness than hunger.
Exhausted she often still
dressed fell into bed.
I took off her shoes or boots and
covered her with a heavy blanket.
The door to the round
belly stove was opened.
I had to wait for the wood
to burn down to cinders
to be able to close the damper.
The dog and I thought ourselves
settled not far from the mouth
of the stove, the coals
smolder then glowed.
They looked like a sparkly
carpet which would take us
to some far away happy land
where there would be no longing
or separation, where
life and joy would reign.
Where no one would take away
but would only give love.
Every couple of evenings or so I'd
bake two potatoes in the coals,
one for me, one for the dog.
When they were ready we
shared this tasty treat
and life didn't seem
so bad after all.
The New Year school
break was drawing near
and my release was also drawing near
because I could head for the city
for two weeks to my grandmamma
and my grand-step-papa.
My half year of exile with my mother
had finished and at school a couple
of schoolmates had
become friendly with me.
After the passing of the year report
cards we got ready for a carnival.
Totally uncharacteristically my
mother got involved in this event.
In a pail she mixed up petite
colors, tied up the corner
of a sheet and soaked
them in the pail.
She folded the sheet in half, sewed
up the sides, cut out the whole
at the top and the result was an
unusual and splendid sack dress.
Then she sat me down near
the kitchen window in light
and having pulled out some things
from her lean cosmetics bag
she began to make me up.
We rarely touched each other
yet now mother's fingers
slid over my forehead.
She powdered down my
nose and cheeks,
touched up my eyelids,
chin and eyebrows.
Her hands and her clothes
smelled of medicine,
which was my mother's
usual fragrance in which
through her touch awakened in me a
love that I had not known before,
love for my mother,
a daughter's love.
When she handed me the mirror,
back at me stared a child's face
that was divided into
the good and the evil.
The grimace on one
side was frightening
but the black furrow drawn
from my nose to my chin
and with a yet blacker eyebrow.
The other side was a thick
covered with old powder,
bright with a happy mouth,
its corners drawn up.
Who am I, I asked my mother?
A split personality, she replied.
In school getting lost in a crowd
of elves, rabbits, squirrels,
Snow Whites and gingerbread,
I felt myself admired.
I wasn't awarded the prize for
the best costume, of course,
but I felt that the split
personality had won.
Joyfully I ran home
in the late evening.
Maybe my mother was waiting
with a dinner prepared for me.
Already tomorrow I would
be leaving for two weeks.
I wanted to put my arms around my
mother's neck and kiss her again
and again in thanks for
this beautiful carnival.
For the split personality which
she conjured up like a good fairy,
like a miracle worker, my
dear, different mother.
At the house outside a
frenzied dog was waiting for me.
Inside it was dark and cold.
Momma hadn't fired up the round
bellied stove nor the cook stove,
although today was
a holiday for her.
Having entered the corridor
I heard odd wheezes.
My momma was lying in her bed,
beside her discarded a bottle
of alcohol and some
sort of white tablets.
Around her neck was
an old man's necktie
with which she had tried
to strangle herself.
I rushed to her, tore
off that damn necktie
and brought her up to sit up.
She choked and coughed until
she vomited up a liquid
in which the small
white tablets floated.
All night I brewed tea for her.
She obeyed and drank it
and now and then vomited.
When she fell asleep I
crawled in beside her.
I slept almost not breathing, my
head pressed to her left breast
to hear if her heart was still
beating and hadn't stopped.
Thank you.
>> Andrew Springer: If Razans is our
Ambassador then translators are the
embassy, I would say.
There is no cultural interchange
without the work of translators.
And so the translator we just
heard was Margita Gailitis,
also iconic in her own way
in Latvian literature a
tremendous range of styles.
She's translated many
great Latvian poets
and fiction writers and others.
And also an iconic story of
hardship maybe deep in the tunnel
of the previous century and quite
some redemption, I would say,
with her magnificent body of work.
She will also be assisting
with translation
for our next literary talent up here
who is Liana Langa,
primarily a poet.
And if I might say, a true poet, a
true Latvian poet, just magnificent.
And Liana also had some
experience studying in New York.
She was at the new school for
a while and many other things.
She's worked in film aesthetic.
I believe she currently
runs a publishing house
in Latvia, Apostrofs.
And was involved with the Latvian
Literature Center and so on.
She has a book, which
I admire greatly,
called The Deadly Nighshade, which
has been translated into English
and quite a lot of
other poetry besides.
So why don't we invite
Liana Langa up here
and Margita Gailitis also back here.
Thank you.
>> Liana Langa: Good
afternoon ladies and gentlemen.
Before we start our reading let
me express my gratefulness to each
and everybody who has
made this night come true,
especially Mr. Razans, Mr. Harris,
to start all this fantastic
institution and everybody
who has come and paid respect to
Latvian literature and authors.
And I will be reading a
little bit from my cycle
of poems whose title is
Those Who Don't Belong.
A couple of poems in Latvian and
then little cycle will be read
by my dear translator
Margita Gailitis.
Those Who Don't Belong,
[ Foreign language ]
>> Margita Gailitis: "The
Ones Who Don't Belong",
I awake suddenly from deep sleep.
In the forest undergrowth
my shadow roams.
Hundred thousand year greedy
muzzles suck moisture clinging
to a vessel of mist.
Like a large, wet, green tea
leaf the sky swims into my eyes.
The narrows don't frighten it.
Starships nestle close
to me, the wreck.
I don't know what the
beasts will tell me,
don't understand why
my visitors are silent.
I was your key, the new wine
that the devout locked
away in dark barrels.
In a trance the dark
breathes, dissolves,
casts in my features other
reflections of other bygones,
other lives and then inside
a large part of me dies.
I suddenly wake from a
deep sleep as the grains
of your hail erode my face.
Someone in an owl's voice says:
God, but your hand is empty, empty.
[ Foreign language ]
>> Margita Gailitis: I'll
read several verses now,
now that you have had the
opportunity to hear our ancient,
Indo-European source Latvian books.
Leaves frost bitten by a harsh
night rustle between my fingers.
[inaudible] A white paintball thrown
against a cheap granite slab
summons an echo of your voice.
Here, fired by the passion
and politics of lovers,
all transactions take place
more swiftly than in a market.
An echo is like the
sound of salmons spawning
as they rub their dull
backs, just more audible.
But one pigeon cock
thrusts a beak straight
into the heart of another
pigeon cock.
The grave digger, Valerie,
keeper Valerie smells of vodka
and paranormal life
under piles of leaves.
Although she grasps many with purple
hands, it seems more likely she does
so with yellow chalk lips.
In the sky the clouds
congeal into lumps just
like synthetic pillows
in cheap hotels.
They hung in chapel key
jumbles in the Baltic named
like the mummy bag of a wealthy man.
Now we'll [inaudible]
among the process.
The mother land where one's
face is shown by the pointing
of a shallow symbol, a handful
of sand and a sob time takes
down to the bone of bones and
rejects whatever was once kissed
and offered up to the angels.
At the foot black handle
cedars now have fossilized.
Breathing accidentally
one grows vigilant.
Suddenly too tangible
is non-existence
which can be so easily approximated.
My mouth is full of soft pebbles
when I try to remind you of my name.
You say to me, summer, stop,
too much of glowing flesh,
classy grey light on the eyelids,
the odor of decaying mans.
Maybe a movie [inaudible]
perhaps through the Antarctic.
Don't be angry.
Escape heals but only for a space of
time just until the blood blackens
and the [inaudible] layer
the hourglass [inaudible].
Afterward, as you know,
the sand returns
in us so we may slave further.
Who shall say where we should head.
The streets shall lead further
than our own seemingly sure steps.
The grainy asphalt drugs will
weed into themselves the code
of arms of cast down glances.
The tense life of a
walker's muscles.
The Indian ink shed by shadows.
A city will wallow fever,
it will beg its inhabitants
to call a doctor.
In the hair lock shed around
the hairdressers high heels,
recently bought a baby
carriage glances
which meets suddenly
and swell like an edema.
This is where time lives.
Who will instruct us
where we should head?
On a sultry afternoon in the market
from butchers counter a snow
white elbow accidentally knocks
down an hourglass.
Fine glass slivers slash
summer's juicy veins.
Now you see how new rhymes are born.
A shortsighted uncle holds
the world by a thread.
Five year old [inaudible]
conducts a pollen ballet,
Ukraine feed their crane
links, ore becomes ore.
Come, life's winter.
In a corner window ledge
a mouse bites on a bit
of bacon larger than the city snow.
Lemon yellow sunbeam bagpipes tangle
in the tree branches sounding
funeral marches, racing clouds stick
to the sky like cookie crumbs
through a sick man's mouth.
The crunchy bumps of love
slack crawl over a letter
that possibly was written by God.
Over the A4 format page
forces ideal handwriting,
chains of words without memory.
They slowly are warmed
by the letters readers are
captive, his body warmth.
He involved follows
letter by letter,
understanding not a word
just listening and listening
to the soundless rattle of chains.
Come, life's winter when the
thick mouse will flutter away
from homing glances and the cold
will be such that words will freeze
into icicles and all the sweet
demanding mulch shall grow larger
for the word mama.
And the letter will be
blizzard into infinite snow
and will sleet exploded and naked in
the midst of the sands cave as part
of the handwriting, as the
letters from which days and nights
and the big mouse bake
in our [inaudible].
Then winter will come
to save the captive
and one more time awkwardly
gurgling will create food,
smoke from crematory and chimneys,
plows, motors, tenderness, alcohol,
dirty streets, a puppy
breath, Christmas time colors,
this year's first ice snow crust.
[ Foreign language ]
The ones who don't belong
love non-belongers love more.
Awkward city noise wake
sleeping monsters in beds
of threatening sighs in which
through barred windows dark
and light flows in
tingling beastly passion.
But the ones who don't belong love
the non-belongers, love them war.
In the corner behind the four door
wardrobe forgetfulness hums turning
over greasy pages in the family
calendar with 50 recipes,
descriptions of insects,
photos, down to earth advice,
perhaps how not to
die before ones time.
The ones who don't belong
love non-belongers, love more.
Forgetfulness has a
werewolf's confidence.
With a dark blue tongue it examines
and examines once more
all the facts,
especially numbered
year 1,960 on the cover
of the book that dust shadows cast.
Those who don't belong love
non-belongers love more.
In late autumn they love when slimy
leaves cover front windows of cars,
muddy floors, raising
of sweat on palms.
They love by the sound that
grates the nerves of silence.
They love with the plumb [inaudible]
which when pressed forcefully
draws squiggly features
on the [inaudible] golden skin.
Hello werewolf.
The holidays behind the barred
windows do not belong to us.
Keep your pain to yourself.
Those who don't belong love more.
Thank you.
>> Thank you very much for your
attention and now the last one.
It's about an elderly
lady she sees a dream.
Naturally I wrote this
poem in dream.
I just had to wake
up and write it down.
[ Foreign language ]
She sleeps.
She'll soon be 67.
She dreams that he has come
unshaven in a white shirt reserved,
slightly tanned and smiling.
He'll ask if she's still
separated from him.
She sleeps.
She'll soon be 67.
She dreams.
But as it is in a dream the
spaces curve and another.
He in a white shirt is on the
other side of the room but she is
in the same room yet in another,
in a room in a rose hued dress,
very young, at a time before
they met, before they wed.
As it is in a dream there
are many rooms and times
and right beside her there
is another shape, nude.
She sleeps.
She'll soon be 67.
She dreams that she has
suddenly split in two.
One is a rose colored
dress like snail shell,
the other the snail
which has slithered out.
She sees herself nude in a dream
mirror but how to put the space back
in space and herself in the
dress while he reserved, unshaven
and smiling asks how he
managed to get into her dream.
He asks why she doesn't
put on her dress.
Is she not cold?
And if he and she, could
they not try once more?
Then like a stroke of lightening
she recalls in her dream
that he's been dead now
for more than 20 years.
A black butterfly gigantic
like a plane,
flapping wings can
suck out sweet nectar.
The small [inaudible]
doll can manage on her own
to step out of the big one.
She sleeps.
She'll soon be 67.
She dreams.
Thank you.
>> Andrew Springer: A
starship settled near me.
I believe that was one of the lines
from the poems that we just heard.
It's a little bit how I feel today.
It's a wonderful glimpse into a
very exotic language and culture.
Latvian language comes
from originally deep
in our prehistory of
world civilization.
And for those of you who
can't enjoy the Latvian
in original we do have these
wonderful translations.
And so I can encourage you to check
out Liana Langa's English language
collection, the Deadly Nightshades,
which is available from Guernica
Editions in Canada, I believe.
It's just impossible to get the
residences of poems such as these
in a first reading and the
residences I believe are the closest
to that poor spirit of true
Latvian history and culture
of anything I've heard,
just beautiful.
I'll make one more plug before I
introduce our final reader for today
because my initiation into
Latvian literature, if you will,
comes from these people and it is my
great privilege to publish several
of them in Trafika Europe.
And this is a project which
is dedicated to principles
that people here are
also dedicated to,
that we need just a little more
openness in European cultures,
we need a little more mutual regard,
we need a little more
working together and a sense
of belonging together
more in Europe.
And that's not difficult
to do but it does take
that little bit extra effort
and I think all European
cultures can benefit from doing
that a little bit, especially in
this time that we're navigating.
So Trafika in Europe is a project
which is dedicated to that.
We did a focus on Latvian
literature last year
and we are also just coming
out with our first volume.
It's a collection called
Central New European Literature.
Latvians are represented in here
more than any other culture.
So if you feel like picking up
a copy of this today that's fine
or you can certainly find it via
our website, trafikaEurope.org.
And it's been quite a journey
and quite an education for us
at Trafika Europe to learn
about these incredible European
cultures and really incredible.
It's really just an embarrassment
of riches, such mine of gems.
So I encourage you to check
out other neighboring cultures
and other European cultures as well.
Our last reader for
today is Juris Kronbergs
and in his own way
also iconic of some
of the best Latvian
literature and culture can be.
Among his many studies in
Stockholm where he was born
into a Latvian family in Sweden
as well as in Cambridge in England
where he studied two
topics, which I also teach
at university it turns out,
theory of literary translation
and 20th century poets,
two topics very dear to me.
He has made an illustrious career
not only as a writer but also
as a representative for writers.
He was president of the
Latvian Branch of Pen,
the Writer's Organization.
He has won all sorts of awards
for his many collections of poetry
and his many translations,
too numerous to mention,
awards with words like star
and order in the title as well
as a career as a diplomate.
He was the culture for Latvia for
about 10 years from the beginning
of the 90's thereabouts
to the early 2000's,
at the time Latvia
joined the European Union.
So he has witnessed firsthand
a lot of this current history
of what we're living through
and he's reflected it in books
of great sensitivity and depth.
His poetry has been
translated into more
than 20 languages including
some very exotic ones
like Welsh and Catalan and so on.
And his collection Wolf One-Eye
has been translated into English
in full, which I believe
he'll be reading from today.
And this one also awarded
best Latvian Poetry
or something like this.
It's a great pleasure to
welcome Juris Kronbergs.
>> Juris Kronbergs:
Thank you, Andrew,
for those kind words, partly true.
And thank you, the organizers, for
this event, library and the embassy.
I will read mainly in
English but two poems
in both Latvian and English.
I will read five poems from
the collection Wolf One-Eye
and some other poems.
So first five poems
from Wolf One-Eye.
Out of the Blue, it was day
but he saw the moon as well
and a black beetle on a slack
rope that jigged over his field
of vision, past cloud drifts of fog,
past blistered wisps of nothing.
Not a word had been said
about an aquarium in the head.
The slow and resolute curtain of
opaque and gritty water rose up.
Darkness fell on all roads, all
meadows and forests and [inaudible],
pastures and rivers, creek
beds and hillsides and snows.
In the aquarium black beetles
darted to and fro, seeds of death
that stalked their
beginning, the end.
The same poem in Latvian.
[ Foreign language ]
Wolf One-Eye has changed,
he felt he had changed.
He wasn't sure how.
He could hardly remember
how it all once had been.
Someone had slammed
a door in his face.
Perhaps it was a shock of the impact
that changed his opinion of change
and as a consequence
or else as well.
Snow did not fall down.
It snowed up.
In spring the birds brought
trees to the budding leaves,
nothing was as it had been.
And the cloud cried
when raindrops left
and the sky cried when
the cloud left.
Wolf One-Eye cried because he knew,
he knew nothing save what he had
lost because he looked on the world
with eyes of unknowing
and one of them was mute.
Wolf One-Eye believes that from
this moment there will be only half
of everything.
I will long for, half long, the life
before, half-life, to see everything
as it really is, half seen.
Each sentence will be
split in half, each leaf
or every stream will stop halfway.
But then a half will
just be half of a half,
half of which half
I only half of them.
All will be half days, half hours,
half baked, half done, halfhearted,
halfway understood, half empty
not half full, half drunk.
As I enter a newly built
house, half will collapse
but half will remain, which half?
The better half or the worst.
As I prowl the forest,
half will disappear.
Every other spurts, every other
mushroom, every other passion.
As I go across the
rapids how will I know
on which half of the bridge to go?
And the rapids beneath me
will be gone, half gone.
Wolf One-Eye in spring,
leafing trees drip from the sky.
Black and white keys
sprout from the earth.
A piano that no one plays,
still the tones sound.
They are wings.
They fly away.
But Wolf One-Eye think in
a blink, how will I sound
when spring plays me like a piano?
White but not only white,
black but not only black.
The sky drifts from the trees
and earth sprouts from the keys.
Out of the dark, it was night but
he saw the sun as well in a cold way
where nothing danced
beyond his field
of vision a long transparent
wisps of nothing.
And someone mentioned the
aquarium that had been in his head.
The gritty water had left
drifting shrouds of mist.
A slow dawning of old roads, old
meadows and forests and snows,
pastures and rivers or weed
beds and hillsides and snows.
Spots of dark danced
with shrouds of mist.
The fruits of life had found
their ending, the beginning.
So on the next poem I wrote
when Russia began the
occupation of Crimea.
Spurred on by my colleagues,
Liana Langa
and the Swedish writer,
[foreign name] Erickson.
It was published in
Sweden's largest newspaper,
Dagens Nyheter, in Swedish language.
Gravitational Waves, these days
when I think about Ukraine I think
of the allied conference of
Yalta at the end of World War II.
I think of my own life as well.
Like in 1975 when I wanted to do
something that might sound ordinary
but was for me quite exceptional,
to visit for the first time
in my life a home on my mother's
side and her daughter, my cousin.
They lived in my father's
childhood home
in the Latvian harbor
town of [foreign name].
In those days the Soviet Naval Base
of [foreign name] was a closed city.
That's how it all began in 1939.
To safeguard its interests
Russia only needed access
to the Latvian [foreign language]
harbor on the Baltic Sea.
That's why we met somewhere
else, in the capital, Riga,
the only place unrestricted
for a tourist like me.
An added computation
was citizenship.
I was a citizen of nowhere.
I was stateless.
My only document was a
Swedish alien's passport issued
by the Swedish imitation agency.
A note in tiny handwriting
declared that the holder
of this document is a citizen
of the Soviet Union though
I was born 1946 in Sweden.
When I applied for a Visa at the
Soviet Embassy in Stockholm I had
to list all my relatives and
their places of residence.
My only measure of protection
for the trip was membership
of PEN International.
And so I came to meet my relatives,
the only ones who had survived the
war, the deportations, in Riga.
At customs a translation
of [foreign name] published
in Sweden had been confiscated.
The officer's scrupulously
examined my suitcase.
He spoke only Russian.
The staff on the night train from
Poland to Riga, I was not allowed
to travel by day, spoke
only Russian.
All street signs in Riga
were only in Russian.
And now a few days ago there
were plaques in the city center
with the slogan Russian from
[foreign name] to Riga in the hands
of those for whom Russian state
controlled television is the sole
decoder of our times.
You know, these are probably the
reasons these days when I think
of Ukraine I also think back
to my first visit to Riga
to the conference of Yalta and
why I feel, like many others,
in the land where I wasn't born,
unease about the future,
unease about today.
The next poem is in memory
of the great Swedish poet,
Nobel Prize Laureate and a great
friend of Latvian literature
and a very good friend to
some of our best poets.
And the title, TT Sees Me,
is because Transtromer has
an autobiographical book
that is called Memory Sees Me.
TT Sees Me, death is a truth barrier
and a parachute to jump from life.
I want to take its
measure, to tailor its suits
but it never comes while I wait.
Down a slope I see stones
flying, stones rolling right
through a glass house but
each pane stays intact.
For the glass is comprised of
tones and words, TT someone says,
that's a Swedish news agency.
No, I say, I mean the
poet, Tomas Transtromer.
His words are news flashes that
pierce the wall of oblivion
and there as wall after wall
opens up, slowly straight
into space the great enigma.
Same poem in Latvian.
[ Foreign language ]
The next poem is called
Strata of Time.
And it is written in the
restaurant [foreign name] in Riga.
My former unofficial Riga
office during my diplomat years.
Day sneaks off with the
smell of tobacco, rain.
Old film music drifts
from a loudspeaker.
It's Nostalgia's birthday today.
Days of the past turn up
like uninvited guests.
Time leafs through your old
as yet unwritten diaries.
You turn time like the
pages of a newspaper
when the print refuses to stick.
Empty streets, empty windows
fill up your old ghosts of old.
A flash of thought.
A flash of proximity.
A flash of what may be, maybe was.
May as well have been.
Rain all day.
Fatigue up to your neck.
A wonder the houses haven't been
worn down by all these writings.
A wonder the words haven't been worn
away by all these prints of fingers.
A wonder the bridges
haven't been ground to dust.
Night. Houses of parliament
and government sleep.
Democracy has surrendered to
the dictatorship of dreams.
And the last poem and very
autobiographical poem is called
Never Time to Write Poetry.
Sometimes I work on the underground.
Sometimes I work as a diplomat.
Sometimes I deliver
lectures in diverse places.
Sometimes I translate
novels or poems.
Sometimes I'll go and
buy groceries or browse
in bookshops in diverse places.
Sometimes I'll cook a meal.
Sometimes I watch a show.
Sometimes I take a walk or a
glass or two of wine or beer
with colleagues from diverse places
or alone in airports or planes.
Never time to write poetry.
It happens in the time that isn't.
I steal some hours from sleep.
Shut the book I'm translating now.
Shorten cooking times.
Prepare spaghetti al dente,
supposed to be healthier.
Get the kids to prefer
very rare meat.
Chop the veg with a meat
cleaver, all to save time.
I write on buses, trains and
planes for there's never time
to write poetry so
it isn't really work.
It's just a way to pretend.
There is no time that exists or
there is but it stops while I write
and its stead letters tick across
the page or screen like seconds
and just like time poetry
is both linear and cyclical.
I always have time to write poetry.
That's all I do.
[applause]
>> Andrew Springer:
Juris collection,
Wolf One-Eye is available from Arc
Publications in English translation.
Thanks so much to the
Library of Congress
for this event marking
Latvian literature.
As the Ambassador told us at
the beginning, it's the first
such event here so it is
wonderful that all of you have come
and commemorated this
culture here with us.
And how appropriate that it's
here in the European Reading Room.
Thanks especially to Grant
Harris who is the head
of this European Reading
Room for helping
to facilitate this
and to all of you.
[applause] Why don't we have
one more round of applause
for our performers today?
[ Applause ]
It's our lucky day.
We're able to take
one or two questions,
if anyone has any questions
to go with our writers.
>> My question is to both
ladies writing in Latvian,
you seem to be knowing English
but still you are using
Ms. Gailitis to translate.
Would it make a big difference
for you to write in English?
Is it connected to your, I guess
your feelings or your emotions
that you express better in
Latvian than in English?
>> Nora Ikstena: So I believe in
the theory that writer belongs
to language so I belong
to Latvian language.
And I'm not going to
switch my writing language.
I think that's why translations
exist and that's so nice
that we have this variety
of languages in this world
and so I'm happy to write in Latvian
and to have good translations
to get the readership
outside Latvia.
>> Liana Langa: We believe that
the newborn baby already cries
in his native language and I
completely agree with the poet
who used to be poet laureate in
this institution, Joseph Brodsky,
whom I had luck to listen to
couple of times in New York City.
He said that poetry can be written
only and only in native language.
He tried himself writing English
and it was not the best experience.
He write prose in English but
poetry can be written, we believe,
in Latvia, only native language.
And I must say our
language is sacred to us
and to any Latvian writer.
Thank you.
>> I'm curious how that last
question would be answered by Juris
who is both deeply Latvian
and deeply European so.
>> Juris Kronbergs:
Well if it is question
of the English language then I try
to write something in English just
for fun and showed it to my
translator, who is also my wife.
She grew up in Australia.
And she said please don't.
[laughter] But as I
grew up in Sweden
and I'm bilingual I also
write poetry in Swedish,
let's say 25 percent and
75 percent in Latvian.
But not at the same
time, with one exception,
when I wrote Wolf One-Eye it was
a decision that I will write this
and immediately translate
into Swedish.
And so I did and I wrote it
and used both the languages.
And the language is sometimes
decided in different ways,
how I should proceed with each poem.
But of course it's a very
exceptional situation because of
when I grew up in Sweden my
first language was Latvian.
We lived many Latvian families
in one part of Stockholm.
And until I started to go to
school I spoke almost only Latvian.
I didn't know the Swedish
language very well
when I start to go to school.
But it was not problem because
the requirement was not such,
should be very good in
native language at that time.
So how can I say?
When I started to write,
when I was 17 or 18,
poems I wrote in Swedish language.
But then there was a friend
of mine whose mother was one
of the best Latvian poets
of the 20th century,
Veronica [foreign name], and she
encouraged me to write in Latvian.
And when I started to write
poetry in Latvian it was
like all my childhood and
everything was opening up in a way
and it wasn't quite another
emotional experience to write
in Latvian for the Swedish
language was more connected
with collecting information
and getting, what's it called,
bad, you know, from teachers.
And so I think that I cannot
fully answer your question,
only shall I continue?
[laughter]
>> Andrew Springer: For
people who live on the cusp
between two cultures like that, I
think that they're doing more good
and more work for the infrastructure
of the future civilization
that we're building
than almost anyone.
And for those who don't live
on such a cusp we have literary
translation doing that work.
And Paul Valery said that when you
translate something that you love,
your heart will break but
something beautiful will come
from that breaking and
that's our experience
of enjoying another culture
through the lens of our own.
It's quite a creative art.
Thank you again very
much and good afternoon.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.
