This year, two authors have received the Poetry Days award: Raimonds Ķirķis for the debut collection of poems “Kartes” and Jānis Hvoinskis for the book “Muse from the City N.”. Both books were published last year by Neputns. “I have a kind of internal censor who automatically discards all the bad things that happen in my head. In my opinion – the more articles, the less they are written down,” Jānis Hvoinskis emphasizes in LR3 Klasika’s program “Grāmatu stories”.
Liega Piešiņa: What kind of relationship do you have with poetry, if you write it slowly and a little but emotionally?
Jānis Hvoinskis: In fact, the collection was ready in 2013 or 2014 – I tried to find publishing houses and somehow everything went slowly. I write poetry quite constantly, so you can’t say I don’t write.
I have an inner censor who automatically discards all the bad things that come to mind. In my opinion – the more articles, the less is written down …
How do you write down?
Most of the time, poetry is created when I am walking somewhere – I write down different sentences in a notebook. Once upon a time there was a job that was free for several days, and I slept well in the mornings, ate breakfast, drank coffee and then worked for about six hours at the computer, creating poetry, looking for something good, reading and correcting. That’s how it’s all slowly forming.
You are the person who did not publish the first collection of poems at a very early age. Do you feel any different? Because poetry just belongs to the new …
Yes, really – I feel different, because I don’t fit in with the new ones, and I don’t, because they are all already recognized.
I seem to be unrecognized, but for years. It seems to me that there is not much like me.
Don’t say it all! Daina Sirmā, as well as Sandra Vensko and a few others – your friends could be found.
When I started writing, I only knew Sandra Vensko. Yes, now there are more people who are encouraged.
Do you also read other writings?
Of course, of course! I follow the poetry. I don’t buy much, I take it more in libraries – so reading it comes a bit delayed until the latest books go to the library. But nothing – life puts its stamp on it. In general, I read all the poetry that comes out. I try to read from those who are already familiar, and also from those who are new.
How important is it to educate yourself in the literary field? Because it is the process of education itself – but you can pretend, do nothing, write and say – I feel that way …
I don’t think that’s right …
Some write that impression leads to similar writing. But I believe that reading and impression are very important, because only in this way do we form some thoughts, we can understand the world and poetry more deeply.
When I started writing, I wasn’t too familiar with poetry. It was in 2003, and the first four years took me to read only poetry, nothing else, moreover, in abnormal quantities, in order to learn everything that has already existed in Latvia and is considered modern. Only then did I begin to turn to other literature and prose.
How would you describe this collection of your poems yourself? What kind of people could it be close to?
Poetry, in my opinion, is that sometimes an author has only ten close readers. Poetry collections in hundreds of copies are also published in other countries. So we have a lot – if we issue about five hundred copies.
If I say you’re ascetic, will you agree? How would you describe yourself?
I have a number of people: one could be an ascetic and the other a bohemian. There are definitely many more …
These people are somehow trying to live in me, and I think they also have something to do with poetry.
Are there any situations where a poet helps you solve any issues in your real life?
No, I don’t think a poet helps me solve something – rather I like thinking as such.
I am not a philosopher in the literal sense of the word, but I like thinking and I spend a lot of time alone and thinking,
thus, both my external and internal world are formed.
What does the translation process give you?
Language enrichment. And when you read another writer’s work, you enter his mind, discover his world. In fact, already reading any work, I think more about who this person is than about what he wrote.
I like to get to know a person through his works.
How do you perceive self-isolation time?
Nothing much has changed in my life. The only thing – I can now do work from home, and it is even better, because I do not have to go to work and back. Before that I had to spend quite a long time driving.
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