| Abstract [eng] |
Poems about Biržai and Biržai Region published in the book „Poezijos sparno paliesti“ (2008) (in English – “Touched by a Wing of Poetry”) are analyzed in this article as a concrete example of making the locality literary. Methodological principles of analysis are oriented to Barri Lopez’s studies of the literature of place and to that, what Gaston Bachelard names topoanalysis, marked with a sign of topophilia. The book „Poezijos sparno paliesti“ was prepared and published on Biržai community initiative. The strategy chosen by the compilers of the book optimally matches and expresses expectations of the local reading poetry community. The essence of the strategy is: a „place-name“ principal of sampling poems, ignored esthetical value of poems, cultural-educational book publishing intentions, which predict the particularity and needs of its addressee. Various shapes of Biržai poetical (self) identification show up in the book: being “Biržai-spirited” is identified to northernness, to being “aukstaičiai- spirited”, to being “by-Latvian-spirited”, with entering the presence Sėliai tribe past, brewery and beer usage traditions, geological regional peculiarities and etc. In the poems, besides Biržai town itself, Lake Širvėna, the rivers Apasčia and Agluona have become a spatial text dimension epicenter, and the Radvilai with their Biržai Castle – a historical dimension. Contrived and constructed like a poetical Mental Map, the book „Poezijos sparno paliesti“ performs not only functions of making Biržai and Biržai Region “literary”, but also functions of topophilial “encetrement”, making Biržai and Biržai Region “Lithuania’s/ the Earth’s/the world’s… middle, centre”. |
