On Friday, February 18, the poet Māra Zālīte will celebrate a round anniversary, and on the eve of her birthday, a concert program dedicated to her “It Spoke…” will be performed at the music house “Daile”. It is composed by the poet’s daughter, actress Ilze Ķuzule-Skrastiņa in collaboration with composer Kārlis Lācis. But at the beginning of this week, a selection of poems by Māra Zālīte “All Things” has been published, compiled by the author herself, including both old and new poems. Soon Māra Zālīte will finish working on a book for children “Mushrooms in Tango and Tūtiņa”, and she will continue to work very hard on a new work of art, which is called her big secret.
Māra Zālīte starts the conversation about celebrating the anniversary with self-irony, saying that in the last five years we have been surrounded by so many centenary celebrations that this concept has just stuck, and she would have nothing against her to continue this line with her anniversary.
The poet admits that there is no better gift for the anniversary than the special concert program prepared for her in vain by her daughter, actress Ilze Ķuzule-Skrastiņa and composer Kārlis Lācis.
In turn, as a gift to the lovers of poetry of Māra Zālīte, a selection of poetry “All things” in the order of the author has been released this week. The selection is characterized by great diversity, including poems written in the style of Latvian songs, more epic verses, and texts that have stepped out of the musical format, gaining new life as separate poems.
A selection of poetry written in different periods is connected with the latest poems, but Māra Zālīte is convinced that a large part of the readers who have written before will be new, because she has not published poetry for years, because she has been busy writing other novels and plays. .
The poetry collection is, in a sense, the fruit of a pandemic, because the poet admits that she would hardly be able to cling to this collection and focus on poetry at all.
The pandemic period has been very active for her so far, but she does not reveal what work she is currently writing, but adds that it is her big secret. In addition to this secret, a book for children “Tango and Tūtiņa ‘s mushrooms” has been published, which will be published soon and will be a continuation of Tango and Tūtiņa’ s first book. At its center are the adventures of two dogs, the characters of which the writer has seen from her four-legged friends.
Although the last two years in professional terms have been a fruitful period for Māra Zālīte, in general she feels it as a cruel time that has unleashed not the best manifestations of people.
At the end of February, the concert version of the legendary rock opera “Kaupēn, mans mīļais” will start playing again in various parts of Latvia. As the author Māra Zālīte, of course, I am glad that this work has been able to interest the young generation of musicians and spectators, but it is sad that the problem that has become actual in rock opera for 20 years has not diminished.
When I asked which of the songs with her words best resonates with the mood of her own soul, Māra Zālīte names Jānis Lūsēns’ song “The River Brings Water” from the play “Mystery about Dream and Love”.
A selection of poems by Māra Zālīte “All Things” has been released this week, on the eve of her anniversary, on February 18, a concert program dedicated to her “It Spoke” will be performed at the music house “Daile”, but on February 26 in Jelgava there will be a start “Kaupēn, my darling ! ” concert performances.
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