Vagabond Sun

<p>In the post-war period when most poets in Lithuania were writing about politics or when they were focusing their lyricism on the pastoral Judita Vai?i?nait? (1937-2001) without ignoring either politics or her bonds with nature became a poet of the city. Instead of paeans to forest and farm we find flowers growing out of cracks on the sidewalks trees dropping their petals over garbage heaps and run-down buildings overcome with a rich luxuriance of weeds. Instead of tradition-bound country life we encounter the cosmopolitan woman discovering herself in cafes cramped Soviet apartments and labyrinthine streets. This thematic concern is connected to her style of sharp and sudden contrasts and juxtapositions. Tender lyricism is cut with violence and foreboding. Randomness sudden change and danger form parts of her poetic experience as much as the beautiful facade the church bells and the cobbled streets. Vai?i?nait?’s city is also the locus of her exploration of the modern woman’s identity: single educated working free. There are poems of love and poems of struggle against the restraints of a patriarchal world of conflicts between the freedom and power to seek her own career path and the responsibilities of motherhood. Nevertheless Vai?i?nait? did not disconnect herself from her country’s past writing lyrical poems from the perspective of historical and mythological figures. Notably her personages are often woman. As a result the voices of Lithuanian history and myth have never been richer.</p>