A. Žagrakalytė is the laureate of many prizes. She has as many as seven important awards to her credit, of which she won the Liūnė Sutemas prize in 1996, the “Poetic Druskininkai Autumn” prize in 2003, and the Jurga Ivanauskaitė prize in 2014. And where else are the nominations in the Book of the Year elections and entry into the twelve most creative books.
Critics describe her style as zagrakalyst, that is, full of irony, playfulness, and eroticism. That’s how she was during this interview, where we talked about her work, her biggest mistakes, and the ups and downs of her literary life.
– What is your first memory related to poetry?
– My mother recites poems while I have some medical procedures, during which I have to stay still. A dad who recites and sings poems. Mountains of plates with a versed tale. (And – no, my parents are not teachers or librarians).
– You are a prolific writer – this is the ninth book in your bibliography. How do you stay motivated to create? What is the source of your creativity?
– I didn’t think I was productive, but in the second interview this month, they call me that, so maybe I’ll even believe it. My motivations may vary from genre to genre. For example, writing “Noble Scammers” was motivated by the definiteness of the order and the clearly stated reward. I wrote “Eigul’s Daughter” and “Noisy Catholics” primarily for my father. In addition, I received a scholarship from the Council of Culture both times, otherwise I might not have finished both books. I write articles about saints for “Kelionės” magazine primarily for my father and mother, because they subscribe to that publication. Poems often appear by themselves, as residual phenomena of everything. After publishing a book, I’m often in another book because I’m… not satisfied with what I’ve done, I’m angry with myself for not doing much, not doing it the right way, I’m not doing something and somewhere, at this point I keep remembering the Belgian engineer Camille Jenatzy, who in his electric car in 1899 called “La Jamais Contente”, “The Unsatisfied”, this is me. I’m the one who is always dissatisfied with something, I want something more, I want the books to be different, I keep reinventing the bike, so I usually sit in a pile of parts: sometimes I’m very happy, and sometimes I’m completely confused, because the devices that worked so well in my imagination do not make me happy in reality.
– How do you deal with being strict with yourself?
– I don’t fight. I continue to gnaw and that’s it. I collect even more beautiful installation parts and after playing with that pile of parts, I calm down.
– I always think of creativity as an antidote to internal self-destruction, evil. What is creativity for you? What is the most suffocating about her?
– Now I think about creativity as a pleasure, entertainment, one of the options for spending my time. Do you watch series? They are someone else’s creation. Questions about creativity are the most suffocating about creativity. I don’t have an answer, I have a different answer every time, I have too many answers.
– In general, how have you changed as a creator since the first poems were published in 1996?
– I don’t know. Ah, I used to worry a lot about my publications then, and now I don’t worry at all. And I’m equally excited about my books. As then, so now.
– Julia Cameron, one of the most popular creative writing teachers, suggests that writers go on “artist dates.” It is the writer’s time for himself, an individual adventure, necessarily done in solitude. Is there time for that in your creative process? Is this typical of you? How is your date with yourself?
– I don’t know if it’s a date with myself, but at least once a month on Thursdays I run away from home: I choose a Belgian city, write down what museums and art galleries there are, book a hotel for the night and get on the train. Several articles have already emerged from such escapes, so it works. If not alone, but with my husband, that’s how we escape on Saturdays – sometimes also with an overnight stay. We walk through fields, forests and villages along marked routes, and spend the night in strange hotels in small towns. The French call it “changing the scenery.” I think it’s quite healthy to change the decorations like this sometimes.
– The fifth chapter of your book “In the World of Literature” tells about the ups and downs of a writer’s life – what happens when Goodreads gets one star, when a poet’s wife critically describes her husband, when she confronts a publisher-cobra, when she gets involved in a Facebook discussion. What, in your opinion, are the biggest flaws and problems in the Lithuanian literary world?
– I don’t know what those flaws and problems are. Such excellent and surprising books keep appearing that I am completely satisfied with Lithuanian literature. Ah, literary criticism has really decreased, it has been replaced by annotated texts and book reviews, but this topic started crying more than twenty years ago, as far as I remember. And that “poet wife” is a real person, from a tenth-century miniature, so she lived even earlier than the tenth century. When you get a one star rating for your masterpiece, it’s really heartbreaking. But if you take such things seriously, there will be no end to it – you can immediately lie down, cross your paws and die – because there is no greater misfortune than comparing yourself to others. I try not to allow myself to play this terrible, endless comparison game, it’s really very unhealthy, and it looks pathetic and stupid to those watching from the side.
– What about the publisher-cobra? Does it have a counterpart?
– All good publishers are predators, otherwise their publishing houses go bankrupt. I respect and love.
– “My heart, don’t cry/ When you’re ugly” is the first sentence the reader encounters after opening your new book. These are ironic lines that set the tone for the whole book, about whose addressee and subject they would like to ask you.
– When I cry, I’m very ugly, and I’m still very ugly the next day, so I try not to cry. These two lines can have many readings. Somewhere recently I jotted down a very sly-sounding idea that if you write “as it happened to you in life”, without changing anything or lying, at best it comes out as a snot in the form of a poem. But now I can’t find where I wrote it, so I can’t quote it elegantly. The addressee is, I think, those who have also read my previous books of poetry. The readers of my prose and poetry are sometimes the same person, but usually not.
– Although the book is not about women’s relationships, the opening poem is about the queen and the queen and their conflict. What is the motivation behind this poem?
– A poem about a queen and a queen. There comes a time for everyone when you realize that your age and responsibilities no longer allow you to be a queen (you can try, but a fifty-year-old queen looks… khe khe), but there is still a good role to play as a queen. This poem can also be about generational conflict. The poem probably came about during a kendo competition, when you have to fight against someone ten or even twenty years younger, and you realize that the strength is not equal, but the experience is equally unequal. A young poet and an old poet? Young soldier and old soldier? A goofy cute puppy and a lame gray dog? Things are incomparable and there is no need to compare them, but a poem can be written.
– In the chapter “Between our girls” the leitmotif of the fight prevails. Of course you do iyaido and kendo, but more importantly you take women’s competition to the level of martial arts. It sounds philosophical (“Her accent on the forehead is like a kiss”). What kind of feminist are you? Or maybe you looked at this concept as a label? How do you understand female relationships? Maybe they are comical?
– In that department, all those that our shinai and cups collide with for many years almost every day. My friends are of very different ages and nationalities and genders. I think that “a stroke on the forehead is not like a kiss” is not philosophical, but erotic to say the least. I’m such a feminist, and all relationships are more or less comical.
– The “Diary” poems are especially intriguing. Are they what the name implies? Autobiographical? But don’t all poems have the potential to be like that?
– In the manuscript, that section was called “Diaries, type”, but editor Alvydas Šlepikas suggested deleting “type”. I don’t know if it’s a good thing that I agreed, because you see, I can’t see how I’m turning my tail anymore, it’s harder to pretend that “it’s not about me”. I think my poems are more often biographical, but not auto. It’s safer to tell other people’s stories so you don’t make snot in the form of a poem.
– What’s wrong with poetic snots? Are you allergic to sentimentality? Is there sentimental literature that appeals?
– Snots are snots. Even if Alice Meler in one of my books dramatically exclaims “snot is just unshed tears!”, but I don’t like it. Yes, I always want my readers to laugh and cry while reading, but I want to do that by writing funny.
– And isn’t the “Animals and Flowers Album” the “snottiest” in your terms? Diminutives appear here (in the poem “I’m watching the match” it is written: “A mouse under transplanted ferns/ a song is a calendula, a galanda/ a melody is iltukes”), of course, later in the poem the subject catches herself and seems to excuse herself that “it’s very easy to make diminutives in the morning prayer”. Aren’t there hard times when you don’t allow yourself to romanticize life?
– No, my term “snot” describes something other than classical contemplative descriptions of nature.
What does it mean to “romanticize your life?” To buy flowers, a skirt, perfume, pizza with red wine? A difficult moment – when you try to push a heavy chest of drawers across the room.
– It is natural that writers get inspiration from the world around them, sometimes they have to steal something from their personal lives and books. Sometimes it is called allusions, intertexts and other fancy literary words. Don’t you sometimes feel guilty when describing other people’s stories?
– I show those texts to those people, tell them what I wrote (if they are still alive). In the original version, the poems about friends and acquaintances had their names in the titles, but later I changed the titles to “Ji”, “Ji II”, etc., because one heroine really works in the secret services and it is better not to mention her name even in Lithuanian poetry.
– What is your biggest fault?
– My biggest fault is that for twenty years, being a mother, I wrote books instead of just being a mother. My very first essay, which I wrote, was called “Mama Poetė” – it was commissioned to be written by Giedra Radvilavičiūtė for the “Northern Summer” festival. Because now, when both children are adults, I can finally do something without that guilt.
– Do your children willingly read your literature? Do you have any comments?
– No and no (smiles).
– You end the “diary” poems with a poem that begins: “I will not have any inner/ child,/ I have enough of an inner mother.” Later, you describe her as having “an inner room with many microphones and speakers”, embroidering “a skirt with sequins, also with small beads”, kneading “curd dough”. If you had to talk to your inner mom right now, what would you most like from her? What kind of woman would she be?
– It’s the same as always, after all, it’s the internal judge and accuser and trainer, not some specific woman.
– If this new book of yours could change the weather, what would it be?
– Sunny, gentle wind.
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Crucial Confrontations pdf free Download
Ch was published in a literary magazine, had me reflecting on this dichotomy of roles. The pursuit of writing often took precedence, leading to feelings of guilt and the nagging question of whether I was dedicating enough time to my children. Balancing these two aspects of my life has always been challenging, and I sometimes wonder what experiences I might have missed while engrossed in the world of literature.
Yet, I believe that my writing has also added another dimension to my role as a mother. My children grew up surrounded by a rich tapestry of imagination, stories, and poetry, which has shaped their understanding of the world and nurtured their creativity. This interplay between motherhood and writing has been both a burden and a blessing, a beautiful mess of contradictions.
In hindsight, perhaps the guilt is an inevitable part of the journey. Every creator wrestles with such feelings, especially when passion beckons so alluringly. Embracing this complexity might be the key to understanding that we are always in a state of evolution—both as individuals and as creators.
