J.C. Todd’s To Be the Roots
The Butterfly’s Apology by Māris Salējs
Statements on poetry by:
EdvīnsRaups
Knuts Skujenieks
Photo of Vizma Belševica by MargitaGutmane
Photos of J.C.Todd,Māris Salējs, Kārlis Vērdiņš, byRebecca Seiferle
All other Latvian poet photos courtesy of the Latvian Writer’s Union.
Edited by J.C. Todd and Margita Gailitis
Notes prepared by Jānis Elsbergs, Margita Gailitis, J. C.Todd
EduardsAivars (b. 1956) Poet and essayist, he has publishedfive volumes of poetry. The most recent volume received the LatvianPoetry Prize (2002). He uses his pen name when publishing poetry, andhis birth name, Aivars Eipurs, for his work as therapist in theMinnesota program for drug and alcohol counseling.
AmandaAizpuriete (b. 1956) Widely published poet andtranslator. Since 1980, she has published 8 books of poetry and onenovel in Latvian, with books published in translation in Sweden andGermany. Her poetry and prose has been published in anthologies inScandinavia, the Baltics, Iceland, France, Germany, Russia, Canada andU.S.A. Eric Funk has composed a symphony with text from her “ThisEventide Seems Spoiled.” She has translated Georg Trakl, JosephBrodsky, Virginia Woolf, Ken Kesey and John Updike. She received theprestigious Horst Bienek Prize from the Bavaria Academy of Art (1999);the Latvian Poetry Prize (2000) for Bābeles nomalē(Outskirts of Babel); the Latvian Book Prize (2003) fortranslations of Anna Akhmatova. 
Vizma Belševica (b. 1931; d. 2005) has seven volumes ofpoetry, and numerous awards in Latvia, including the OjārsVācietis Award (1988), the Order of the Three Stars (1995), and theCultural Ministry Award for Life Achievement in Literature (1997). HerSwedish awards include the Einar Forseth Foundation Award (1992) andTomas Transtromer Award (1998). 
Uldis Bērziņš (b.1944) Prolifictranslator and poet. His first poems appeared in 1963 but the first ofhis six volumes did not appear until the 1980s. His poetry has beentranslated into French, Swedish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Russian and otherlanguages. A polyglot, he has translated poems for many languages,including Turkish, Persian, Spanish, English, Polish, Swedish, Russianand Old Icelandic. His current project is translation of the Koran andthe Old Testament from Hebrew and Arabic into Latvian. His awardsinclude the Literary Award of the Baltic Assembly (1995) and Order ofthe Three Stars (1995).
LeonsBriedis (b. 1949) Founding publisher and editor of theLatvian philosophical journal, Kentaurs XXI (Centaur XXI)and Minerva, Ltd. publishing house, he has published almost 20 volumesof poetry. He writes for both adults and children and translates fromPortuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Catalonian, Latin, Swahili, Russian,English and others. His international literary prizes include one fromthe Writers’ Union of Romania (1991) and the Order of the Three Starsfrom Latvia (1999). 
Ronalds Briedis (b. 1980) Poet and critic, he has published one volumeof poetry (2004) which received the best poetic debut award. He managesliterary projects for the Writers’ Union of Latvia. Jānis Elsbergs (b. 1969) Poet andtranslator, his first two volumes were published under the pen nameJānis Ramba. Translator of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, Harold Pinter,Arthur Miller, Kurt Vonnegut, Walt Whitman, Charles Bukowski andAmerican Beat poets such as Gregory Corso and Gary Snyder. His book,Rīta kafija (Morning Coffee)(1996) shows the Beatinfluence. He has been co-editor of major Latvian literary journals,including Karogs and Luna and head of the Young Authors’Association.
Klāvs Elsbergs(b.1959; d. 1987) Poet and translator, he published two volumes of hispoetry and one was published posthumously. A major translator of Frenchpoetry including a collection of poems by Guillaume Apollinaire. Aleading poet of his generation, he was one of the founding editors ofAvots, an influential intellectual monthly that introduced avantgarde and politically charged subjects during the period of Glasnost.
Inga Gaile (b.1976) Winner of the KlāvsElsbergs First Book Award (1999) and the Ojārs Vācietis Award(2004) for her second volume. She also translates from Russian thepoetry of the Riga-based Orbita group. 
Astrīde Ivaska (b. 1926) Poet and professor. Author of 6 volumes of poetry in Latvian,she recently returned to Latvia after many years abroad. In the UnitedStates she taught at Oklahoma University and St. Olaf’s College and wasa reviewer for World Literature Today. Inara Cedrins’ Englishtranslations of Ivaska’s selected poetry appeared in two volumes in theUS. 
JurisKronbergs (b. 1946) Born in Sweden of Latvian parents,he is an important figure in Latvian poetry and actively promotesLatvian literature in Sweden, translating dainas (folksongs), andBelševica, Skujenieks, Ziedonis and others authors into Swedish. Firstpublished in the mid-1960s, his recent collection Vilks vienacis (WolfOne-Eye) was published bilingually in Latvian and Swedish. His awardsinclude the Ojārs Vācietis award (1988) and the Order of theThree Stars (1998). 
LiānaLanga (b. 1960) Former director of the Latvian NationalCouncil of Culture, she began to publish in 1988, winning LatvianNational Literary Awards for two books, Te debesis, teciparnīca (NowHeaven, Now an Hourglass) (1997) andIepūt taurītē, Skorpion! (BlowYour Horn,Scorpion!, 2001). She translates from Russian and English and hasstudied literature at the New School in New York. Her legal name isLiāna Bokša. 
EdvīnsRaups (b. 1962) Poetry editor of the cultural weekly,Kultūras Forums, he has published four volumes of poetry in Latviaand translated many Latin American and Spanish authors. First publishedin 1986, his awards include the Klāvs Elsbergs First Book Award (1991)and the Rainis and Aspazija Foundation Prize (1995), the FortechLiterature Award (1998) and the “Preses nams” Award for hisfourth collection, Uzvāri man kaut ko pārejošu(Cook Up Something Transitory for Me). His poetry is widelytranslated. His birth name is Edvīns Struka.
Jānis Rokpelnis(b. 1945) Poet, essayist and script writer. First published in 1968, hehas subsequently won the Baltic Assembly Literary Prize (2000) and theAleksandars Čaks Award (2001). His work has been translated intomore than 20 languages, and he translates primarily from Russian.Formerly a Senior Research Associate at the Riga Museum of Art, he hasbeen an editor of several periodicals, including Karogs. Currentlyhe is writing a biography of Knuts Skujenieks.
Māris Salējs (b. 1971) A poet, critic andtranslator, primarily from Polish, Ukrainian and Russian, he was firstpublished in 1994. His awards include the Anna Dagda Award (2001) forhis second volume of poetry. An editor at Luna, a literaryjournal, and co-editor for the Latvian feature in Howling Dog Pressinternet journal, Omega, he is a librarian at the Academy ofCulture in Riga. His birth name is Marians Rižijs. 
Knuts Skujenieks (b. 1936) A poet andtranslator, he is considered one of the finest Latvian poets. In 1962 inSoviet-Latvia, he was sentenced to seven years in a hard labor camp inMordova, Russia for high treason, a charge resulting from meetings withother young dissident intellectuals. Although he began writing poetry asearly as the 1950s, his books did not appear until 1978 and poemswritten in the labor camp were published in the 1990s, after Latvianindependence. His eight-volume collected works is published by NordikPublishers. He translates from many languages, including the folksongsof most European countries. Among his numerous awards are the TomasTranstromer Prize (Sweden, 1998), the Order of the Three Stars (Latvia,1995) and for his translations, Commander of the Catholic Order ofIsabel (Spain, 1994) and the Gedimino Order (Lithuania, 2001). 
KārlisVērdiņš (b. 1979) Poet, critic andtranslator. He has published translations of William Carlos Williams,H. D., Virginia Woolf and T. S. Eliot. His two collections of poetryare Ledlauzi (Icebreakers) (2001) and Biezpiens ar krejumu (Cottage Cheese with Cream) (2004). 
MāraZālīte (b. 1952) Born in Siberia where herparents had been deported by the Soviets, she returned to Latvia in1956. A poet, essayist, playwright, and librettist for opera and rockmusicals, she has been editor-in-chief of Karogs and was thedirector of the National Language Commission in Latvia. She is presentlypresident of the copyright agency AKKA/LAA. Her rock operaLacplesis (Bearslayer) (1988) was one of the mobilizingforces in the “Singing Rebellion” that led to Latvia’s renewedindependence. Her awards include The Order of Three Stars (1995), theMayakovsky Award (1982), the Aspazija Award (1992) and the Herder Award(Germany, 1993). Sun Stroke in the Dark, Margita Gailitis’English translation of Zālīte’s selected poems, was recentlypublished by Atena (2005). 
IneseZandere (b. 1958) Poet, children’s author and theeditor of the monthly magazine, Rigas Laiks. Her 3 volumes ofpoetry include Melnās čūskas maiznica (TheBlack Snake’s Bakery) which collects her poems from the past fifteenyears; it received the Latvian Poetry Prize (2003). 
ImantsZiedonis (b. 1933) A prolific poet, his poetry iswidely translated; Flowers of Ice, translated by Barry Callaghan,was published in Canada. He has published almosttwenty volumes of poetry in Latvia. A formative thinker on Latvianculture, he writes non-fiction about rural Latvian life and culture aswell as tales for children for which he received the Hans ChristianAnderson Award (Denmark). Among his many awards is The Order of theThree Stars (1995). A deputy in the Latvian Parliament in the 1990s, hehas held numerous significant cultural positions. 
PēterisZirnītis (b. 1944; d. 2001) Poet, publisher, former Director of theLatvian Museum of Literature and Art History and Vice President ofLatvian PEN. He has published seven volumes of poetry. As founding publisherof Nordik, he has focused on publishing translations of poetry. 
Margita Gailitis was born in Riga, Latvia, andis a writer, poet and translator. She left Latvia as a small child andafter several years spent in displaced persons camps in Germany,immigrated with her mother and two sisters to Canada. She has travelledextensively and has lived for extended periods of time in the U.S.,Jamaica, Italy and Spain. In 1998 she returned to Latvia to work at theTranslation and Terminology Centre in Riga on a Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency sponsored project translating Latvian laws intoEnglish— a prerequisite for Latvia’s accession to the EU. Havingspent her professional life in Canada working in advertising andmarketing, she also assumed marketing and PR responsibilities for theTranslation Centre. Now Margita Gailitis concentrates her efforts onliterary translation and her poetry, which she writes in both Latvianand English. She has translated some of Latvia’s finest poetry and proseand been instrumental in organizing publishing opportunities for Latvianwriters in Canada, U.S., Spain and elsewhere. Her poetry has beenpublished in various periodicals and has been awarded both Ontario andCanada Council grants. Her poems have been published in a book“Freedom Half Blind”.Inguna Jansone (b. 1963)Poet and translator, her major translations include Edgar Allen Poe,Richard Brautigan and Fay Weldon. Her second poetry collection, Sampunsar balzamu (Shampoo and Balsam), was awarded the Anna Dagda Award(1998).
IevaLešinska (b.1958) is an editor, journalist, poetand translator living and working in Riga, Latvia. Once a culture editorfor Radio Free Europe in Munich, since 1993 Ms. Lesinska has been on theeditorial staff at the magazine Rigas Laiks and also holds afull-time position as English language editor at the central bank ofLatvia. She has received special notice for her translationsof Anglo American poets into Latvian, including T.S. Eliot’s TheWaste Land, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, as well as selectedpoems by Robert Frost, Seamus Heaney, D. H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, DylanThomas, and others. Her original poetry has appeared in Latvianperiodicals and anthologies. She is currently working on a book of“documentary fiction”. In this issue, she has translatedBerzins, Gaile, and Zandere.Ilze Klavina-Mueller , a native of Latvia, divides her time betweentranslation and poetry. Her translations of the work of Vizma Belševicainclude poems and selections from Belševica’s memoir Bille, published inin The Review of Contemporary Fiction (Spring 1998). Her poems haveappeared in Looking For Home: Women Writing About Exile, CALYX,Water~Stone and other journals. She is a member of The Laurel WritersCollective, a group of writers and graphic artists living in the St.Paul-Minneapolis area.
Māra Rozītis (b. 1952) Born inAustralia and currently living in Stockholm, she is an actress, theaterdirector, playwright. She translates a number of Latvian poets intoEnglish, including Kronbergs and Belševica.Inara Cedrins’ first anthology of contemporary Latvian poetry waspublished by the University of Iowa Press in 1981; her chapbook oftranslations of the poetry of Astrid Ivask, At the Fallow’s Edge,was a Small Press Book of the Month Club selection and went into asecond edition. She previously edited an issue of the online magazineOmega featuring Latvian poets (accessible at www.howlingdogpress.com). Her poems, stories and translations from the Latvian have appearedin The North American Review, Chelsea, PrairieSchooner, The Portland Int’l. Review, The Ledge,The Minnesota Review, Translation/Columbia University,the Massachusetts Review, Kansas Quarterly, The AtlantaReview, New Letters and The Chariton Review, amongothers.
Co-Editor:
J.C.Todd‘s poems and translations have appeared in theanthology Shade 2004, and in The Paris Review, APR,RUNES, Crab Orchard Review and other journals as well ason-line in Verse Daily. Pine Press published her chapbooks:Nightshade (1995) and Entering Pisces (1985).Awards include a fellowship in poetry from the Pennsylvania Council onthe Arts, two awards from The Leeway Foundation, a Virginia Center forthe Creative Arts international artist exchange fellowship to theSchloss Wiepersdorf colony in Germany and a scholarship to the BalticCenter for Writers and Translators in Sweden.She has previously edited a feature on contemporary Lithuanian poetryfor TDB and was guest poetry editor for the Summer 2005 issue ofThe Bucks Country Review.A lecturer in Creative Writing at Bryn Mawr College in the spring of2006, she has an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren WilsonCollege.