Dzejas dienas festival, Riga, 2021 By the gap from door to floor through which air refuses entry like a refugee with second thoughts, they’re reciting poems that abide for a time in the dark hall of a barge moored in the corpse of a canal, a wasted-end waterway left for the mysterious machinations of art where we don’t even seem to float; but if we did break free (imagine!) the Dauguva River would take us in its broad, strong embrace past Riga Castle (nicely renovated), under the lone, lifted wing of a bridge, past the Soviet factory (nicely dilapidated), out to the Baltic Sea, and from there, well, it depends on the currents and the weather, which, today is professionally sunny like the way Americans smile at you when you walk down their streets and don’t seem threatening, whatever that might be, however, everyone can seem threatening in the post-Soviet embrace (it’s like being hugged by a bear). Today, though, the crowd is all apples: ripe and ready to fall from the tree, and we do fall as the light changes, for early September is already the fall where we all seem to be moving towards a universal short circuit in the system resulting in that blinking yellow that means you probably shouldn’t be here at all; nevertheless, the curious sun finally creeps under the gap of the barge’s warehouse door to hear Madara Gruntmane recite a catechism of translations that rolls over the windfall world— transfixed in transubstantiation— though anima means wind and it is surely blowing.
Rimas Uzgiris is a poet, translator, and critic. His work has appeared in Barrow Street, Hudson Review, The Poetry Review and other journals. He is the author of North of Paradise, and Tarp, (poems translated into Lithuanian, shortlisted for best poetry book of the year). He is translator of five poetry collections from Lithuanian, and translated the Venice Biennale Golden Lion winning opera Sun and Sea. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers-Newark University. Recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant, a NEA Translation Fellowship, he teaches at Vilnius University.
