Poems by Rimas Uzgiris in this issue
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Judita Vaičiūnaitė
Introduction and translations by
Rimas Uzgiris
JuditaVaičiūnaitė: AnIntroduction to Her Work
Inthe post-war period, when most poets in Lithuania were writing about politics(whether communist verse, or veiled resistance poetry), or when they werefocusing their lyricism on nature, on the pastoral (and all its manysignifications to a culture still steeped in its pagan past), Judita Vaičiūnaitė, without negatingpolitics or her bonds with nature, wrote about the life that was immediately infront of her. She was a poet of the city. Born and raised in Kaunas, theneducated in Vilnius where she remained for the rest of her life, she describedits streets, its crumbling facades, its courtyards and dead ends. She wrote ofcity life: going to butcher shops, frequenting cafes, meeting vagabonds andgypsies, romance in cramped apartments, darkened streets. This thematicconcern with modern city life isreflected in the style of many of her poems—they are loaded with sharpand sudden contrasts and juxtapositions. Tender lyricism is cut with violenceand foreboding. The lines often break apart. Parenthesis and elipses appear inunexpected places. It is as if the world presses in around the central focus ofher poems in ways she cannot control. Randomness, sudden change, and danger areparts of her city life as much as the beautiful facade, the church bells, thecobbled streets.
Vaičiūnaitė’s poetical perspectivestood out at the time for another reason as well. She was a poet of the modernwoman: single, educated, working, free… Her poems treat love and courtshipfrom that woman’s perspective, giving us an interior, lyrical experience wherethe man is the distant and desired other. Besides writing the romantic side offeminism, her poems also express themes like the struggle with restraints of apatriarchal world, and the conflicts between the freedom and power to seek herown career path and the responsibilities of motherhood. "The RedDress" stands out as an example of the understated, yet powerful way shetreats feminine desire, the restraints imposed upon it, and the expectation ofthe modern woman that she will still be free, despite the challenges. Like inmany of her poems, the emotional content is expressed through the symbolicpower of a physical object. In this case, a red dress is pinned on aclothesline, buffetted by the wind, “yet still”, she writes, “itwill break free”.
Despite her comitment to a modern and cosmopolitanlifestyle Vaičiūnaitėdid not disconnect herself fromher country’s past. The pagan connection to nature, so prevalent throughout thehistory of Lithuanian literature, is in her work as well—but transformed.Instead of paens to forest and farm, we find flowers growing out of cracks onthe sidewalks, trees dropping their petals over garbage heaps, and run-downbuildings overcome with a rich luxuriance of weeds.
The human history of Lithuania is present in herwork as well. Vaičiūnaitėexcelled at writing lyrical poems from the perspectives of historical andmythological figures. Only Constantine Cavafy comes to mind as her poetic equalin the ability to bring us inside a historical personae’s mind in a singular,sharply defined, deeply felt lyrical moment. Unlike the case of Cavafy,however, Vaičiūnaitėpersonages are mostly woman. As such, she uses them to bring to the foreperpectives often left out of history. For instance, how did Catherine feel, asthe third wife of king Sigismund Augustus, sister to his first wife, andneglected by a husband still mourning the death of his second wife and greatestlove? The cycle “Canon for Barbora Ravilaitė• gives us many ofthe voices connected to this historical drama in the court of the UnitedKingdom of Poland and Lithuania. We hear from the king’s mother, Bona Sforza,whom many think poisoned the beautiful bride because she was not politicallyconnected enough to be queen, andwe hear the king himself at Barbora’s deathbed, speaking to us an interiormonologue, drenched in grief and desperate hope. Finally, at the end, we hearfrom Barbora herself, travelling in her coffin, hearing the sobs of herhusband, the ticking of hoofs, returned again to be buried in her belovedVilnius… and to live on in its dreams. In many of these historical poems, thefragmentary lines and jagged juxtapositions of the city poet give way torhyming, metrical lyricism.
The diversity of styles, personaes and themes inthe work of Judita Vaičiūnaitė,handled with utmost craft, perception and intelligence, leaves no doubt that weare in the presence of a major twentieth century poet who deserves a wideraudience beyond the rather small group of Lithuanian readers who have cherishedher for decades.
The Red Dress
A red dress throbs on a rope
like a torch left behind.
Moaning, clawing pines
assault the hotel window.
Someone washed the dress at dawn.
Someonewrung it out.
Endless,
the radiance. The weather—
mindlessly sunny, humid, sharp.
A red dress throbs on a rope—
yet still, it will break free.
Translationof “Raudona suknelė” by Judita Vaičiūnaitė,
Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė.Lietuvos Rašytojų Sajungos Leidykla: Vilnius (2010)
Pool Hall
The green flatlands crack and split.
Go.Slice the quiet pool-hall
with the solitary steps of a child
(in the gathering shadows of men),
through the grass of horse-tracks,pitches and pastures
(the shadows are now six),
through the flattened field ofairplanes—
shadowy, luxuriant, wet—
into the deepening dark (it willsoon explode)
hurry (let no one block out
the light in your eyes)…
Butgreenery is more bitter each day
in the world full of shadows andheat
(a distant white crash—
the sun rolls over an empty greenplain
to meet with catastrophe…).
Translationof “Biliardinė” by Judita Vaičiūnaitė ,
Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė.Lietuvos Rašytojų Sajungos Leidykla: Vilnius (2010)
Vagabond Sun
Despite her light hair, you know
she is gypsy.
Through the hum of the faucet, in the cemented night,
a saxophone heats up the dark(don’t come here
to berate the street urchins, theheat, or the begging dog).
Andthe skirt,
flowered like a field (howperfectly lacking taste!),
stuns the proper world. It is,after all, borrowed
from taverns, train stations, andfairs…
It’snot clear what is missing,
but words will spread
like the heart’s faded playing cards,
and we should open our veins in thedusty market-place
(the blood gushes as suddenly
as summer rain),
until again, in humid chambers,
alarm clocks begin to sing,
and you will see that the dawn isboundless,
the sun—a vagabond.
Translation of “Klajoklė Saulė” by Judita Vaičiūnaitė
Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė.Lietuvos Rašytojų Sajungos Leidykla: Vilnius (2010)
Blossoming Pear
But an old armchair in the corner by the doors,
washed now by such muddy rain,
but the rooms full of mist andsmoke,
having drunk in the pale, sleepysun,
but your time is melted into mine,
a happy, sad time, while the peartree, blooming,
looks pitifully thin in the mirror,
unreal as lace…
Probably
the blossoms will fall, but I willlove you,
and blank walls will shine likemother-of-pearl…
Only the smell of blood, hanging over butcher shops,
only the flash ofa knife, only violence.
Translationof “Kriaušė Žydi” by JuditaVaičiūnaitė,
Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė.Lietuvos Rašytojų Sajungos Leidykla: Vilnius (2010)
from Canon for Barbora Radvilaitė
5. Catherine of theHabsburgs
Because of you—I was left faceless.
Myfeatures are smoke.
I lie in the very hearth of history, turned to ashes.
Sigismund mourned you, pushing me aside,
disgusted to the point of pain…
Butlet us not disseminate harms.
I was small when my sister married Sigismund.
I laughed through the engagement, biting a hard apple.
I saw how our crazy grandmother gave the sign of the cross
every morning to theladies-in-waiting.
Ipressed on,
yet it was not my sister’s soulthat stood between us—but you.
Like a sword in bed—
Barbora’sname separated us.
I returned to my homeland. After questioning,
they laughed at me.
Iremain quiet as a rusted bell.
Translationof “Kotryna iš Habsburgų” by JuditaVaičiūnaitė,
Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė.Lietuvos Rašytojų Sajungos Leidykla: Vilnius (2010)
from Canon for Barbora Radvilaitė
6. Sigismund Augustus
I sat like a dog at your side as you lay dying
those many months when neithercharm, nor beauty
remained—only spirit, onlysorrow—as all others
shunned you—you for whombells used to ring…
You remain for me the same courtly dreamer—
red and hot, giving light. And I amafraid, again,
to get close. Burned by thesaltiness of tears,
by the coolness of your hair, whichno portrait captures….
Really—
Will I lose you? Will you disappear? What is a king’s realm
if we are stuck in thiswasteland—two alone in the world?
Nothing else matters to me—your saintly hours stillpulse,
and your gentle fingers have notgrown cold in my hands…
Translationof “Zygimantas Augustus” by Judita Vaičiūnaitė,
Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė.Lietuvos Rašytojų Sajungos Leidykla: Vilnius (2010)
from Canon for Barbora Radvilaitė
7. Barbora Radvilaitė
Like parchment that doesn’t yellow, I will not age.
Love will be my power of endurance, like lines for the poet.
I was born here.
Ibecame the renaissance of Vilnius.
From here I take my charm, the allure this place maintains.
Once dead, I returned. My coffin was dark and tight.
Beyond it—the rhythm of hoofs like the ticking of aclock.
Beyond it—the sighs of Sigismund,voiceless and hot.
Once dead, I returned—having come to believe in my ownsky.
To this city in a fog—to the damp, humid glow
of its towers, to the warm, salvingrain
I came.
Theydidn’t force me to coronation, but having been exiled,
they brought me back.
AndI rose again—having touched this ground.
Translationof “Barbora Radvilaitė” by Judita Vaičiūnaitė,
Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė.Lietuvos Rašytojų Sajungos Leidykla: Vilnius (2010)
