Laurynas Katkus

Laurynas Katkus Poems

Laurynas Katkus Biography

Laurynas Katkus studied Lithuanian and Comparative Literature in Vilnius, Norwich, Leipzig, and Berlin and received his PhD from the University of Vilnius in 2006. He is the recipient of grants from Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung and DAAD. His publications include Between Arcadia and Inferno: Exile in the Poetry of Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas and Johannes Bobrowski (2010). He has been a Researcher at the Centre for Comparative Literature at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, Vilnius. Dr Katkus is also the author of several books of poetry, fiction, and essays, and is a translator from German and English.)

The Best Poem Of Laurynas Katkus

Bread 1972

It smells of gas and ferment.
Obliquely across the pavement,
Vans: oblique letters,
red teats on the underbelly.

Smoldering people
unload
one more generation of babies,
curse ritually.

Black, blind bricks
don't betray
when the blockade is over;
abruptly, like an odor.

It's half past five. In the gardens
behind the city, it's drizzling,
and along the avenue, caraway seeds
are scattered.

Half past five. Half-gods,
we're deep in the bread,
not yet risen, not yet touched
by the palms of steel and the sun.

Translated by Sam Witt

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