News

16 May, 2011. Poet in the City presents poetry event “Borderlands: Poetry from the Edges of Europe” at King’s Place, Hall One. One of the most distinguished guests of the event will be Marcelijus Martinaitis, Lithuania’s leading poet. He will appear with his translator, Laima Vincė, whose 2009 translation of "K.B. The Suspect" was the poet‘s first published work in English, followed by this year‘s publication of "The Ballads of Kukutis" by Arc Publications.

cover image: Algis Griškevičius. Romance of the Great Road, 2008, 120x150cm, oil on canvas

Martinaitis, born in 1936, was a founding member of the Sąjūdis freedom movement, which began fighting for the country‘s independence in 1988, and he expressed powerful dissent through his poetic creation, the hapless Kukutis: „The greatest adventure of my life,“ he says, „was "The Ballads of Kukutis", that absurd participation of the protagonist in typical situations of the time and whose actions it was almost impossible to censor. These ballads were both a commentary on the Soviet system and the effect of a peculiar mythical personage with its origins in Lithuanian traditional culture.“ According to Martinaitis „censorship, to its misfortune, is responsible for creating special linguistic forms of communication which it becomes unable to control and suppress.“

Come along and discover his sharp, comic, salty lyrics spliced with profound compassion and humanity. The evening will also include Croatian poet Robert Bebek whose poems, written on an island off the north Croatian coast, feel like messages from the edge of the world, serene, slow, timeless. The audience will also have the chance to welcome the young Polish poet Marzanna Kielar and the highly original Portuguese writer Daniel Jonas.

The evening will be hosted by Amanda Hopkinson, Senior Fellow at the University of East Anglia, and Visiting Professor of Literary Translation at Manchester University and at City University, London, who will introduce the poets and provide context for their work.

LEAFLET OF THE EVENT

Marcelijus Martinaitis

KUKUTIS’S SINFUL SOUL

When Kukutis falls asleep
his soul escapes out of his body
through his eyes.
Invisible to everyone
his soul roams around Žuveliškės,
and no one can figure out
who it is that is doing
that which is against the law,
the regulations,
the Ten Commandments.

Kukutis tosses and turns
in his sleep and groans:
who is it bringing
all these mortal sins unto him?
And how do so many of them
find their way into his dreams?

Mornings he cannot look
women and children
in the eyes…Oh and his life had been so pure.
How he cleansed it every day
by chopping wood,
by carrying hay to the herds,
by kneeling with a bucket
beside the well –
his soul ought to be
beyond reproach.

Released from his body
his soul bellows drunkenly.
Unshaven,
his soul enters the dreams
of sleeping widows,
whispers curses
into children’s ears,
tempts people drinking at the pub
to denounce God himself.

On the third day
his soul returns grovelling,
dragging its dirtied,
innocent shirt,
crawls up to the Lord God himself,
kisses his hands,
and in a voice ruined by drink
begs that Kukutis
be forgiven the mortal sins
it committed
without him knowing.

Spent,
Kukutis’s soul returns
through his eyes,
gnashing its teeth,
and falls into
life’s long sleep.

translated by Laima Vincė

16 May, 7 pm. King‘s Place, Hall One, 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG. Tickets: from £9.50
To book tickets visit: http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on-book-tickets/spoken-word/borderlands-poetry-from-the-edges-of-europe