Laurynas Katkus studied Lithuanian and Comparative Literature in Vilnius, Norwich, Leipzig, and Berlin and received his PhD from the University of Vilnius in 2006. He is the recipient of grants from Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung and DAAD. His publications include Between Arcadia and Inferno: Exile in the Poetry of Alfonsas Nyka-Niliƫnas and Johannes Bobrowski (2010). He has been a Researcher at the Centre for Comparative Literature at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, Vilnius. Dr Katkus is also the author of several books of poetry, fiction, and essays, and is a translator from German and English.
It smells of gas and ferment.
Obliquely across the pavement,
Vans: oblique letters,
red teats on the underbelly.
...
The road happened to be boggy.
Cars drove by, splashing mud and light.
Below us loomed the blue city of mercury.
Tin and water rusted in its twilight.
...
Truck Driver's Wife In the morning only a leather cap on the shelf.
Driver At first I was really moving- -and thought I might turn over.
Truck Driver's Wife I'm surrounded by cats again. Yarn chokes my neck.
Driver Bremen. Sleet. Dreaming of borderguards.
...
Yo! Wind tore off the door.
Ah, a car, in snow.
Blue evening light,
beginning of Winter.
...
Ich war alt wie ein Rauch
Johannes Bobrowski
once again I pace around the photos on the piano
...