Photo by Monika Požerskytė

The poet and translator Gytis Norvilas (b. 1976) is a historian by education. His debut collection of poems Akmen-skeltės (Shards of Stone) was published in 2002 and since then, he has been associated with surrealism, poetic avant-garde and post avant-garde. Norvilas is a sworn defender of “uncomfortable” poetry: he believes that poems should be disturbing, shocking, provocative. He achieves this by employing linguistic transformations, chains of associations and vivid, memorable metaphors. He often illustrates his works with his hand-made drawings that he calls “doodles”. 

Norvilas has been the editor-in-chief of the culture magazine Literatūra ir menas (Literature and Art) for many years. Although he has only published four collections of poems so far, he is one of the most prominent voices in the world of contemporary poetry and the winner of multiple awards. His poems have been translated into English, Bulgarian, Spanish, Russian, Latvian, Polish, Ukrainian and other languages. 

His latest collection of poems, Grimzdimas (Sinking, 2017), continues his search for an uncomfortable poetic expression that shakes up the established line of thought. The title refers to sinking below ground rather than sinking in water. Ground, garden and well are the images that appear repeatedly in Norvilas’s poems. The poet’s creative work stems from the tradition that he remakes in his own very characteristic way; the poems feature a broad spectrum of echoes of Western poetry, from Walt Whitman to Allen Ginsberg and ancient myths. An important topic of this collection is the destiny of Europe, Norvilas’s physical, spiritual and cultural homeland. Since standard poetic language can’t seem to reveal this topic, a passionate ritualistic swearing is employed. 

Translation on-line: www.lyrikline.org/en/authors/gytis-norvilas