Selected Poems

Aleksandrs Čaks (1901-1950) was a Latvian poet, born in Riga, the son of a tailor. He was one of the first Latvian writers whose work reflected urban realities, rather than rural life.

With the outbreak of the First World War his high school was evacuated first to Estonia, and then to Saransk, Russia. In 1918 Čaks began to study medicine in Moscow, and attended literary evenings with the Futurists and other avant-garde groups. In 1920 he was drafted into the Red Army, serving as a medical or...