by Gintaras Grajauskas (Author), Rimas Uzgiris (Translator)
With the demise of the Soviet Union, Lithuania jumped from a neo-romantic modernism straight into the postmodern wasteland of unfettered capitalism. Poetry audiences went from stadium size to coffee house size. Giddy joy was followed by disillusion, anxiety, angst. 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 humor, irony - all grounded in respect for the quotidian, the small, the insignificant. 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.