{"title":"Knuts Skujenieks","description":"Knuts Skujenieks is the author of numerous poetry collections, including \u003cem\u003eSeed in Snow\u003c\/em\u003e (BOA Editions, 2016), translated from the Latvian by Bitite Vinklers. He was born in 1936 in Latvia, where he studied philology and history at the University of Latvia. In 1962, he was convicted of anti-Soviet activity and served a seven-year prison sentence in the Mordovia gulag. While there, he sent out many poems in letters to his wife, which were first published in 2002 as \u003cem\u003eSēkla sniegā\u003c\/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eSeed in Snow\u003c\/em\u003e). A polyglot, Skujenieks has translated into Latvian such poets as Lorca, Ritsos, Neruda, Vallejo, Galczinsky, and Tranströmer. He has received the highest literary and state honors in Latvia, as well as awards across Europe, including Sweden’s Tomas Tranströmer prize, and his poetry has been translated into more than thirty languages. He currently lives in Salaspils, Latvia.","products":[{"product_id":"seed-in-snow","title":"Seed in Snow","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis first US publication of Knuts Skujenieks—one of Latvia’s foremost contemporary poets—is the author’s most important and widely-translated body of work. Convicted in 1962 of anti-Soviet sentiment, Skujenieks wrote these poems during seven years of imprisonment at a labor camp in Mordovia. Presented bilingually in English and Latvian, this vivid and expressive collection overcomes the physical experience of confinement in order to assert a limitless creative freedom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eTo a Dandelion Blooming in November\u003cspan\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eIf you know you must bloom\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDon’t ask if the time has come\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDon’t ask if the time has gone\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eIf you know you must bloom\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eHeed the voice coursing in you\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWhen sap disturbs your roots\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWhen your greenness torments you\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eHeed the voice coursing in you\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eLift up your yellow crown\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eMuddle plans and calendars\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eMuddle rules, muddle minds\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eLift up your yellow crown\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWith you, we feel we are home\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eYou bloomed unasked\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eYou bloomed unasking\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWith you, we feel we are home\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eSeed in Snow\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Skujenieks makes his own emotions so gigantic that even the trees and the sun itself share them. The pines themselves want to escape, the sun is saddened, and yet, because the landscape shares in the prisoners’ suffering, that suffering is made bearable. . . . Nature, fierce and simple, is always interwoven with emotions in these poems. . . . Skujenieks’ strength is his ability to universalize his experience. . . . The poems in \u003cem\u003eSeed in Snow\u003c\/em\u003e can use this sort of shared experience to transport the reader into a far-off reality most of us will never experience.”\u003cstrong\u003e—\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWords Without Borders\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eAlthough Skujenieks’s poetry has been translated into more than thirty languages, this is the first collection in English. The selection is centered on the years [he was imprisoned] in Mordovia. The poems are highly diverse in style, tone, and motif, but throughout, despite a sometimes dark worldview, an irrepressible spirit keeps breaking through. He shows emotion and man’s engagement with others and with the world around him in voices other than his own, both human and taken from nature: voices as varied as that of the biblical Jacob, the poet Vallejo, a road, and a snowflake. He creates a sense of univer­sality by conflating eras and events.”\u003cstrong\u003e—Bitite Vinklers, from the Introduction\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2016\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":17215841413,"sku":"9781942683223","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/SeedinSnow_FinalFront.jpg?v=1527683339"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/collections\/KSkujenieks_AuthorPhoto.jpeg?v=1460656374","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/collections\/knuts-skujenieks.oembed","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}