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With the demise of the Soviet Union, Lithuania jumped from a
neo-romantic modernism straight into the postmodern wasteland of
unfettered capitalism. Pensions disappeared along with jobs.
Everything underwent "reform". Everything was for sale. Poetry
audiences went from stadium size to coffee house size. Giddy joy
was followed by disillusion, anxiety, angst. Gintaras Grajauskas's
poetry cannot be understood without this backdrop, for it was here
that he cut his poetic teeth and became a major Lithuanian poet. He
met the jarring changes around him with a wry smile, black humour,
irony - all grounded in respect for the quotidian, the small, the
insignificant. Reading his poems, one can laugh and grind one's
teeth at the same time. We can see the influences of Polish poetry
in the irony and search for meaning in a new cultural landscape. We
can see the rejection of lyrical language for the prosaic, the
pithy. Paradoxical, absurd, witty and observant, Grajauskas
reflects a society that has seemingly lost interest in speaking for
itself, for the whole. The individual is on his/her own. Life is
tough, and to be alive today is to drift in uncertainty, but it is
a human life that cannot sustain itself on cynicism and irony. We
question, we search, and we laugh through the tears, reading his
work, knowing ourselves better.
The poets whose work is included in this anthology were born in the
1960s, when Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union, and mostly
started publishing after the country achieved independence in 1991.
Unlike their predecessors, the poets of this generation are not
concerned with political themes but rather with issues of
aesthetics and existential quests. While each follows his or her
unique path, they all share a penchant for experimentation and an
ironic, post-modern perspective, following European literary trends
rather than domestic poetic traditions.
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