Photo by Gintarė Dzedulionė

Helsinkio sindromas (Helsinki Syndrome, 2017), the debut collection of poems by the poet and literary critic Lina Buividavičiūtė (b. 1986), caused quite a stir in Lithuanian poetry when it was published. The book divided readers and critics into opposing camps: some admired the poet’s courage in revealing the dark side of a young woman’s psychology and physiology, while others claimed that traumatic experiences and sensuality were not enough to make a good poem. This reaction only serves to confirm that Buividavičiūtė’s poems are relevant and controversial. The poet regularly participates in literary events and festivals. Her works have been translated into English, Greek, Polish and Hebrew. 

Helsinki Syndrome can undoubtedly be defined as therapeutic or confessional poetry. While the language of the poems is colloquial in many ways, they contain a number of cultural references and allusions. Buividavičiūtė analyses topics such as depression, negative experiences of motherhood, obsessions and childhood traumas. In the course of several interviews, the poet has admitted that most of her texts have been written for therapeutic purposes. But this has not been done with the aim of making a naïve confession or just to shock. Buividavičiūtė employs the scheme of a therapy session (some of the poems are addressed to the therapist) to question the boundary between what’s normal and what’s abject. The importance of anger as a repressed emotion which is revived through therapy is emphasized: in everyday life and art alike, a woman still doesn’t have the right to be openly angry, but repressing the anger is traumatic.