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I'm very, very excited to announce that this amazing documentary about visionary Lithuanian, George Mačiunas, leader of the Fluxus movement, will be screened February 20 – 26 at MoMA. Go see it if you're in NYC! Bonus: listen for George's mother's voice in the film, you may hear someone familiar (my voice!). So incredibly humbled… Continue reading George @ MoMA

I've written and produced my final poetry book, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). It took roughly two years to write. After one year of a frightening, violating political climate and three years’ estrangement from my family, this book was a labor of necessity. MOFA is an epigenetic poetic diary that explores inherited trauma from my mother’s… Continue reading Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Now available

I want to sincerely thank Robert Hansen at Poems-For-All for publishing two of my poems as mini-books to be "scattered like seeds" into the universe.

Here's a brief cinepoem teaser to re-introduce my poetry collection, White Stockings (2015/2016). I put this together in Adobe Spark in about 5 hours (my second attempt at video production/editing). I'm collaborating with an actual, real-life, super-talented visual artist, Tess Cortes (check her out, she's quite amazing). I'll be unveiling about 5-6 cinepoems at the AABS Conference… Continue reading White Stockings Teaser Cinepoem (2018 AABS, Stanford University)

My poetry book, White Stockings, is available on lulu.com, however, I've been creating a series of cinepoems based upon it. The video below is my first attempt, using my own still photos from a "White Stockings"-inspired photo shoot in 2015. It was created in iMovie, before I started tutoring myself in Adobe Premiere.

The Master Plan—an investigative documentary that explores the methods through which Russia influences the domestic policy of the Baltic States—was successfully screened at The Music Box Theatre in Chicago on November 13, 2017, and in December at the Chicago Ukrainian Cultural Center. The film explores how Putin's propaganda machine has been implemented in the Baltic… Continue reading “The Master Plan”: Baltic-produced doc successfully funded & brought to Chicago

I'm very honored to be published in the Vilnius Review this month! The editor—Marius Burokas—was recently interviewed in a local Lithuanian arts and culture newspaper, Bernardinai, mentioning the growing desire of poets and writers in the diaspora to bridge the gap with their native counterparts. Marius was kind enough to mention me as one the poets in the… Continue reading Poems in Vilnius Review!

Happy to share that one of my White Stockings poems has been shortlisted (among ten finalists) for the Berfrois Poetry Prize.

So Spuyten Duyvil is putting out a sizable anthology of some extremely talented and activist voices in poetry today. So grateful to be included in this book. Resist Much, Obey Little Anthology

I'm so pleased to announce that Rain Taxi has published an interview by Michael Stephens about White Stockings. Interview here

Recently published in VIDA. Essay about White Stockings and conflict in Ukraine. Essay here.

Honored to be featured in this article in the Vilnius Review alongside many contemporary Lithuanian/American/Canadian writers. Many thanks to Violeta Kelertas! Article here.    

Back in March, I was interviewed for The Conversant by Virginia Konchan. We discussed my new poetry collection, White Stockings, identity and displacement, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Interview here.  

Since 2004, Ukraine has been locked in a struggle with Russia to maintain autonomy—be it via puppet government officials, propaganda, or bloodshed. To date, more than 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have died defending their right to be independent. As a Lithuanian-American with some Ukrainian roots, I am deeply disturbed as I watch this series… Continue reading Book Release • White Stockings

I've been tirelessly working on a new poetry manuscript called White Stockings for the last year (since the unrest erupted in Ukraine). As a Lithuanian-American, I strongly support Ukraine's right to independence. I stand with many in the Baltic countries who are banning together to back the Ukrainian people. My contribution is small, it is an artistic/poetic… Continue reading Cinepoetry Teaser • White Stockings

"The universe is an infinite sphere, the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere."

Now this quiet seems quiet. Now these pallid proclivities. Now I swallow hard behind the chickadee tree, institutional glass, ugly starfruits. Now little Poetry Priest gets up. Now thick, round rainmaker tightens laces woven through bootholes. Now seahorses swallowing my toes. Now here's your big brash girl— with a spadix in her teeth, wanting so much.   Okiagari-koboshi, "the… Continue reading Missionary Okiagari

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are? Russian sociolinguist Bakhtin wrote of heteroglossia, the idea of language hierarchy or conflict within the mind and how it influences language decisions. This meant… Continue reading Language Straddle

  Pistils, blunt florets here at rest and in motion your tender components organic and aqueous your voice sweet pollen in my lungs like pending interrogatives   The geometry of your blooming eyes is a spider under an atom bomb running your perfect brush across me   shut off as a Cadillac mastodon over my… Continue reading Poem: Neovascular Petals As Our Love Wanes

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Each day is a rabbit. Everything is an uncomfortable list; it is everything that is uncomfortable, this is the point. Hummingbird, whale, rabbit, deer, dog, goldfinch—there is never any future point, there is just now and the next thing. A crown brain. The next cradle mole burrowing, the next thing: pain. The next thing: seed.… Continue reading Poem: May All Beings Enjoy Happiness (Maitri Says)

I transcontinentally conversed with the publisher/director of Mutable Sound books (and music) to discuss my newest book, SPINY RETINAS. Check it out.

Amy Catanzano, author of Starlight in Two Million, discusses poets whose works use science ("from [the perspective of the] investigative, speculative, conceptual, documentary, and more) to "science as a form of address to and from the notion of the other." My work is featured at the end of this insightful piece and a poem line… Continue reading Quantum Poetics: Jacket2 • Failed Star Spawns Planet/Star

I'm writing a new poetry chapbook and it addresses what is happening in Ukraine from the perspective of a Lithuanian-American (as we watch news events unfold daily, the West and Russia's once-somewhat-civil ties unravel). I'm using the metaphor of lack of clarity (or vision, or even precision) via a mythological group of female Baltic snipers.… Continue reading Writing to the Ukraine via Lithuania