Selected Poems

Caks (1901-50) is Latvia's leading mid-20th-century poet, an early adopter of modern literary tendencies from wider Europe, and one of the first really urban poets in the Latvian language - until his eruption onto the scene, Latvian poetry had been grounded in rural life, reflecting the preponderance of Latvian speakers in the countryside, compared to the large German- (and later Russian- ) speaking population in the cities. His first book appeared in 1928, and he threw himself into the Riga literary scene by creating a magazine devoted to younger writers. He made a living by teaching and through magazine journalism. This is the first book devoted to his work in Britain.