Halyna Kruk, a Ukranian poet, member of the Ukrainian PEN

One of the worst mistakes of war is to underestimate the enemy. Many of us are engaged and focused on defense at home, so naturally there is no point in being distracted by what is happening outside the country. That is why, since the first days of the Russian attack, there has been a surprising, disappointing and worrying information policy, with a large part of the Ukrainian airwaves devoted to the so-called Russian liberal pundits who are opposed to the Putin regime.

Mantas Balakauskas

Evelina Daciūtė

Jurga Tumasonytė

Poet Birutė Ona Grašytė discussed literary events and how they have changed with Juozas Žitkauskas, organizer of the events “TAI-AŠ,” “Purpurinis vakaras,” “Dainų dailogai” and head of the cultural association Slinktys.

"I am and will be a reader in the first place"

Danae Sioziou (Δανάη Σιωζίου) was born in 1987. She grew up in Karlsruhe, Germany and in Karditsa, Greece, and studied English philology, cultural management and European history. Currently, Danae Sioziou is working and living in Athens. Literary critic, Greek language specialist, and translator Elžbieta Banytė spoke with this guest of Druskininkai Poetic Fall 2018.

The sound can be a great raw material for creativity, but in order to understand what it brings, where it leads and what is the real message it carries, one needs silence: to get into the hurricane‘s center and then listen out. Often, the true message is not the one that is shouted out the loudest. Often, the true message is hiding away under nine layers of noise ...

Well, and the fury is energy, action, one of our strongest emotions and states, along with anger and hatred. It testifies to me of some limits that have been violated, of pain, and of inner attitude to fight. It is a step that is essential to make on one‘s path away from strengthlessness, but it is important not to get stuck on it forever. Where it becomes a program for life, fury may remain destructive rather than constructive, and prevent one from seeing all the colors of this wonderful world.

All of us are sounds of noise. We are humming, continually ticking with our inner mechanisms, rustling, interacting with ourselves and with others, discharging quietly, or exploding like delayed-acting bombs. We are spawning, skimming through, and seething with fury.

Poetry is a sound of noise. For poetry, fury is not a necessary thing as well as fury does not require poetry. However, the text can be angry; it can be called out, "provoked" by something or someone, thriving its way from inside, or directed to something or someone like a weapon – even if it is an unperceivable, not identifiable thing, or it is you, the writing one. Poetry can be a knock out or knife to the back. A poem can go furious, rushing, and take one away with its current – or it can be a quiet reflection.

For poetry, whatever it may be, is written from anxiety.

Because the texts exist, and some exist by the texts.

Because there are no unreactive poems.

It is quite trivial indeed – but, well, to me the topic of this Druskininkai Poetic Fall means primarily THE novel. The one that I continually nodded my head to when reading. The one that explained me to myself. The one I discovered when studying for my bachelor‘s degree – and it has been one of the strongest books I‘ve ever read.
The sound and the fury are living inside me, those inner voices, their continuous swarm, a schizophrenic kind of being. And that rage of a good girl, that huge anger, and those fingernails digging into the palm of one‘s hand till it bleeds. So that it hurts. Well, now it is also a poem cycle in the almanac of Druskininkai Poetic Fall. Inspired and inhaled by the nostrils of the god of darkness. Expired by the mouth of the god of light.