Poetry
Ezera kristības
Not translated into English
Astrīde Ivaska · 1966
Synopsis
Poems written from 1957 to 1965, in which nature and rural life take first place, mingled with memories of Riga, the smell of apples, the sandy streets and the dunes, in a language that recovers the old Latvian names of plants and animals. In the poem that gives the book its title, the poet cries: “Let us build a house of wind!”, an invitation to seek shelter in what cannot be touched. Man and nature stand side by side in it, with neither ruling over the other.
Context
Upeskalns published this first book in 1966, in Shippenville. Jānis Rudzītis reviewed it in Laiks on 18 June under the title Atgriešanās pie dabas un īstenības: he judges that the poet has found a stable direction, returned to the rural world, and compares her vocabulary with that of Zinaīda Lazda. In 1969, Valerija Baltiņa-Bērziņa quoted the title poem in Jaunā Gaita, and Valda Melngaile, the following year, read in it a landscape attuned to that of the soul. The next collection, Ziemas tiesa, won the Zinaīda Lazda Prize.
Who it is for
A poetry of nature, in precise and restrained language, rich in old names of plants and animals.
Prizes and reception
The first book by a poet whom Laiks praised on its publication for its return to the natural world.