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NEW IN THE TREE OF LIFE REVIEW
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Necklace of Silence
(Tylos Veriniai)
by Birute Mar
Translated by J. C. Todd
pure water poured —
but muddied
on the ground there were
drops — a few — of memory
***
beautiful one that returns
from far away journeys
from unfamiliar cities
smiling to yourself
mysteriously silent
beautiful one, that only just
before utterance
***
it’s already desolate,
already dawn
already morning twilight
some thoughts all of a sudden
some pulses of light sowing
time, hands, bodies
sweet disturbance
melting city
necklace of silence
***
from all of my lives
I remember one autumn
in the memory of that autumn
I peer through a rivery window
in that window
I see an open stretch of road
on that road
I find a footprint
in that footprint
I build a house
in that house
I plant my childhood fern
in that fern
I dream of a shining blossom
on that blossom
I see a fallen drop
in that drop
I recognize an old face
in that face —
I hear my own voice
Birute Mar
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A poet and actress, Birute Mar’s poetry collections include Neissiusti Laiskai (VPU Press, 1995),
Kokoro (Vaga, 1999) and Solo (Strofa, 2001). A member of the ensemble of the prestigious Lithuanian
National Drama Theatre, she has traveled across Europe and to South America and the United States giving
award-winning solo performances of her adaptations of “The Lover,” “Antigone,” and
“Words in the Sand” under the stage name of Birute Marcinkevicuite. This is her first publication
in the United States.
BIRUTE MAR IN THIS EDITION:
POETRY: Necklace of Silence
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J. C. Todd’s poems and translations have appeared in the anthology Shade 2004, and in
American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard
Review and other journals. Pine Press published two chapbooks: Nightshade (1995) and
Entering Pisces (1985).
Awards include a fellowship in poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, two awards for poetry from
the Leeway Foundation, a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts international artist exchange fellowship to
the Schloss Wiepersdorf colony in Germany, a scholarship to The Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators
in Sweden, and a stipend from the Latvian Cultural Capital Foundation. Her poems have received five Pushcart
Prize nominations.
She is an associate editor for the poetry web magazine, The Drunken Boat
(www.thedrunkenboat.com), where she
has edited special features on contemporary Lithuanian and Latvian poetry in translation, and she was guest
poetry editor for the Summer, 2005 issue of The Bucks County Review, and co-editor of “Recurrence
in Another Tongue: Poets Translating Poets” that appeared in Frigate 4 in 2003.
A lecturer in Creative Writing and in the Writing for College program at Bryn Mawr College, she has an MFA
from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
J. C. TODD IN THIS EDITION:
SPOTLIGHT: The Quiet Maverick — An Interview with J. C. Todd
POETRY: Instant of Turbulence
POETRY: Men Kissing
POETRY: Necklace of Silence
POETRY: Nightshade
POETRY: Pissing
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