Seed in Snow

by Knuts Skujenieks, Bitite Vinklers (Translator)

Overview

This first US publication of Knuts Skujenieks—one of Latvia's foremost contemporary poets—is the author's most important and widely-translated body of work. Convicted in 1962 of anti-Soviet sentiment, Skujenieks wrote these poems during seven years of imprisonment at a labor camp in Mordovia. Vivid and expressive, this collection overcomes the physical experience of confinement in order to assert a limitless creative freedom.

A Love Poem

I would like clarity. To exclude
A relationship's tangled yarn.
Not a word.
Let reaction suffice.

So. Only so. And if the two of us
Are pitched alone against the world,
That we can instantly swing about
From face-to-face
And stand back to back.

Would that be too much?
But a poem cannot be written
If one awaits the bullet
From the back,
And not from the front.

Knuts Skujenieks was born in 1936 in Latvia, where he studied philology and history at the University of Latvia. In 1962, he was convicted of anti-Soviet activity and served a seven-year prison sentence in the Mordovia gulag. While there, he sent out many poems in letters to his wife, which were first published in 2002 as Sekla sniega (Seed in Snow). A polyglot, Skujenieks has translated into Latvian such poets as Lorca, Ritsos, Neruda, Vallejo, Galczinsky, and Tranströmer. He has received the highest literary and state honors in Latvia, as well as awards across Europe, including Sweden's Tomas Tranströmer prize, and his poetry has been translated into more than thirty languages. He currently lives in Salaspils, Latvia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781942683223
Publisher:	BOA Editions, Ltd.
Publication date:	11/15/2016
Edition description:	Translatio
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Knuts Skujenieks, born in Latvia in 1936, studied philology and history at the University of Latvia, and from 1956 to 1961 attended the Maksim Gorky Institute for Literature in Moscow. Soon after his return to Latvia, he was arrested on trumped-up charges of anti-Soviet activity and sentenced to seven years in the Mordovia gulag (1963-69). There, however, he wrote intensively and sent out in letters several hundred poems, first published in their entirety in 2002 as Sekla sniega (Seed in Snow). Returning to Latvia in 1969, he found publication of his work restricted, and made a living as a translator. A polyglot, he has translated into Latvian such poets as Lorca, Ritsos, Neruda, Vallejo, Galczinsky, and Tranströmer; poetry from little-known languages; and European folk songs. His first volume of poetry, allowed to be published in 1978, has been followed by four others, and his collected works (8 vols.) were published in 2002-8. Skujenieks has received the highest literary and state honors in Latvia, as well as awards across Europe, including Sweden’s Tomas Tranströmer prize, and his poetry has been translated into more than thirty languages (including collections in Polish, Armenian, Croatian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Italian, and three in Swedish). He lives in Salaspils, Latvia.

Bitite Vinklers is a translator of Latvian folklore and contemporary poetry and fiction. For the translation of the Latvian dainas she has received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant; her translations of contemporary work have appeared in anthologies (among them Shifting Borders: East European Poetries of the Eighties, ed. W. Cummins) and in journals, including The Paris Review, Poetry East, Subtropics, Notre Dame Review, and Denver Quarterly. Her translation of the poetry of Imants Ziedonis, Each Day Catches Fire, was published in 2015. She lives and works as a freelance editor in New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction 9

I

Pasaules mala 16

At the Edge of the World 17

Karls Marija Vëbers, "Aicinajums uz deju" 18

Carl Maria von Weber's Invitation to the Dance 19

Komentars 20

Commentary 21

Es dzirdu 22

I Hear 23

"par galvu kilko debesis" 24

"the sky cuckoos" 25

II

No slimnicas zonas 28

From From the Hospital Zone 29

III

Klauve 44

The Seed Is Knocking 45

Vasaras sakuma 46

At the Beginning of Summer 47

"nesaki neviena varda" 48

"don't say a word" 49

Uzrakstits augusta 50

Written in August 51

Zem pedejas augusta ziemelzvaigznes 52

Beneath the Polestar in August 53

Kapnes 58

Stairs 59

"akmen vai tu spej padzit no sevis celinieku?" 60

"stone, can you thrust aside a wayfarer?" 61

To es saprotu 64

I Understand 65

Ziemas vakars 66

Winter Evening 67

Pielabinašanas dziesma ziemai 68

Song: Cajoling Winter 69

Parslina sika balstina 70

The Voice of a Snownake 71

IV

Par kadu leksikas slani 74

A Lexicon 75

Lanterna magica 76

Lanterna Magica 77

Vel trisreiz uzleks saule 78

The Sun Will Rise Again Three Times 79

To pasaules godiba 82

Worldly Glory 83

Balsis 84

Voices 85

Sesars Valjeho 86

César Vallejo 87

"sen pari pusnaktij" 88

"It's long past midnight" 89

Avetiks Isahakjans 90

Avetik Isahakyan 91

Par palikšanu 92

About Remaining 93

Prata jukušais un mutes harmonika 94

A Demented Man with a Harmonica 95

"Un kad tev acis piesviestas ar sniegu" 96

"And when snow is thrown into your eyes" 97

Pie septitajiem vartiem 98

At the Seventh Gate 99

Cogito, Ergo Sum 100

Cogito, Ergo Sum 101

"Saule sen jau purva sunajos" 102

"The sun has descended" 103

Pienenei kas uzziedejusi novembri 104

To a Dandelion Blooming in November 105

Nejaušs, bet likumsakarigs dzejolis 106

Unexpected 107

Milestibas dzejolis 108

A Love Poem 109

Konstanti Ildefonss Galcinskis 110

Konstanty Ildefons Galczynski 111

"Pie maniem miljoniem gadu" 112

"To my millions of years" 113

Starplauka 114

No-Man's-Land 115

Gitaras pavadijuma 116

To the Accompaniment of a Guitar 117

V

Septinas pirma sniega elegijas un divas elegijas par perno sniegu 122

From Elegies on Snow 123

Notes 139

Acknowledgments 141

About the Author 142

About the Translator 143

Editorial Reviews

"Skujenieks makes his own emotions so gigantic that even the trees and the sun itself share them. The pines themselves want to escape, the sun is saddened, and yet, because the landscape shares in the prisoners’ suffering, that suffering is made bearable. . . . Nature, fierce and simple, is always interwoven with emotions in these poems. . . . Skujenieks’ strength is his ability to universalize his experience. . . . The poems in Seed in Snow can use this sort of shared experience to transport the reader into a far-off reality most of us will never experience." —Words Without Borders

“Although Skujenieks’s poetry has been translated into more than thirty languages, this is the first collection in English. The selection is centered on the years [he was imprisoned] in Mordovia. The poems are highly diverse in style, tone, and motif, but throughout, despite a sometimes dark worldview, an irrepressible spirit keeps breaking through. He shows emotion and man’s engagement with others and with the world around him in voices other than his own, both human and taken from nature: voices as varied as that of the biblical Jacob, the poet Vallejo, a road, and a snowflake. He creates a sense of univer­sality by conflating eras and events.” —Bitite Vinklers, from the Introduction



"Skujenieks makes his own emotions so gigantic that even the trees and the sun itself share them. The pines themselves want to escape, the sun is saddened, and yet, because the landscape shares in the prisoners’ suffering, that suffering is made bearable. . . . Nature, fierce and simple, is always interwoven with emotions in these poems. . . . Skujenieks’ strength is his ability to universalize his experience. . . . The poems in Seed in Snow can use this sort of shared experience to transport the reader into a far-off reality most of us will never experience." —Words Without Borders

“Although Skujenieks’s poetry has been translated into more than thirty languages, this is the first collection in English. The selection is centered on the years [he was imprisoned] in Mordovia. The poems are highly diverse in style, tone, and motif, but throughout, despite a sometimes dark worldview, an irrepressible spirit keeps breaking through. He shows emotion and man’s engagement with others and with the world around him in voices other than his own, both human and taken from nature: voices as varied as that of the biblical Jacob, the poet Vallejo, a road, and a snowflake. He creates a sense of univer­sality by conflating eras and events.” —Bitite Vinklers, from the Introduction

From the Publisher