Auksu lyta (It Rained Gold) [Collection of Poetry] [Lithuanian Futurism]

Very goodcondition; cover shows slight soiling, creases across cover corners, damaged spine ends; internally fingerprints on the outer corners of the sheets throughout the book, possessory signature on the title page.

The fourth book of poems (of five published) by Juozas Tysliava (1902-1961), a young Lithuanian poet (sometimes reffered as Lithuanian Mayakovsky), member of the Keturi vėjai (Four Winds) group influenced by futurism. While studying journalism in Paris he published two issues of a multi-language avant-garde journal MUBA in 1928. In 1932 settled in the United States.

In Tysliava's verse neo-romantic tradition and futurist innovation go together. His poems combine the lyricism of nature with urban motives. The poems are not subordinate to one content, but slide from one subject to the other. Often only the sound, rhythmic structure connects the lines and manages a transition that syntax or logic would not accomplish.

This peculiarity of verse is particularly evident in the current collection including fifteen poems. A man in the urban environment is the main theme of the poems - sometimes he is energetic, dynamic, self-confident, constantly moving, curious, sometimes he's just wandering the city as an observer without a clear purpose. This type of observer is especially evident in the first poem "A Song about Bread", which was later published in MUBA in French translation. One of the poet's favourite images is the evening city - lyrical hero walks around the city at duck under the streetlights, the urban space becomes endless. In the poems largerly appear unnamed cities with abstract images and spaces - streets, alleys, fountains, chimneys, trains, telephones, cinemas, etc. However, in the poem "It Rained Gold", the images of the sidewalks and the boulevards emphasise the French context.