ABOUT THIS BOOK

Although the title of this sensitive collection refers to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, City of Ash serves as a universal geography of the contemporary soul in an urban context. Through his poetry, Eugenijus Alisanka searches for personal and historical meaning within the framework of time, recognizing both the demands of the self and the impossibility of avoiding what came before, whether human or cultural.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

EUGENIJUS ALIŠANKA was born in 1960 and is considered one of Lithuania's leading poets. His work includes articles on poetry and culture. City of Ash is his second collection of poetry; his first, Equinox won the Zigmas Gélé prize, given annually to the best debut book of Lithuanian poetry.

H. L. HIX, a professor at the Kansas City Art Institute, is author of Perfect Hell.

REVIEWS

". . . poetry of distinctive voice and of supple poetic and linguistic structure . . ." —World Literature Today

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"The poems feel substantial yet evanescent, grappling with metaphysical concerns of time and space in a relatively plainspoken style . . . an appealing variety of quietly surreal expressionism . . ." —Publishers Weekly

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"Alisanka spins the web of haunted connections between the real and the unreal in a city that is contemporaneous even as it rises from the shards of history. This is a volume from another world that seems to speak immediately from a literary and political climate quite our own." —Tikkun

— -

". . . poetry of distinctive voice and of supple poetic and linguistic structure . . ." —World Literature Today

— -

"The poems feel substantial yet evanescent, grappling with metaphysical concerns of time and space in a relatively plainspoken style . . . an appealing variety of quietly surreal expressionism . . ." —Publishers Weekly

— -

"Alisanka spins the web of haunted connections between the real and the unreal in a city that is contemporaneous even as it rises from the shards of history. This is a volume from another world that seems to speak immediately from a literary and political climate quite our own." —Tikkun

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Translator's Foreword

dogs' breath steams, cold air catches in your throat
solstice
devoted walls stood there
autumn apocalypse
gloria mundi
who arose in our bodies
dream proserpina
the fall
antipygmalion
like the broken syllable of day
losing death
arrow
écoutez
sand sphinx
dawn breaks: across your forehead
resurrected for those who do not exist
stairs of megara
alien home
morning in the land of visions
to the other side of blood
the one who stands
who will punish you when you return from the land
sub specie aeternitatis
the accent of time is over with us
you leave already
when your warmth
ragged wing, diverting the current
while the day divides you stay
evening tracks
vox
water
necklace
the fog of castle roses
which key wil absolve you of time
pilgrim
pause
peripheral vision
tabula rasa
enchanted country
under the cupola of snow
atlantis
á votre santé
crystallography
crusade
dialogue in a cellar
north wind
two thousand years
the one who laughed at the dead
the heian court
front
civitas lunae
godspeed