Translator’s Note
In the spring of 2020, I received a charming birthday gift from writer Birutė Putrius: a pale-green book of poems titled Metūgės [new shoots; young shoots; year’s new growth]. The poetry, written many decades earlier by another Birutė, tells a woman’s story through unusual imagery, free verse musicality, bold themes, and enigmatic meanings. Intrigued by the originality, power, and beauty of the female voice in this collection, I translated the first poem—and continued.
     Grateful for the opportunity, I reviewed my translations of all 33 poems with literary scholar Violeta Kelertas, who revealed that her father was the Toronto publisher of this 1952 first edition.
     Researching Pūkelevičiūtė’s debut book, I found previous English and Spanish translations of some of the poems, with varying approaches to the originals (see Selected Resources below).     
     Translator Birutė Vaičjurgis Šležas became another champion of Metūgės, offering and debating translation options.
     All the while, I revised: considering the interconnectedness of the poems; striving for musicality through techniques such as alliteration; seeking “the best words in the best order” to reflect the Lithuanian originals with their dramatic dashes and sentence fragments, as well as word-gender and other language play where possible. I continue refining the poems and this website.
     Stanza breaks sometimes differ between the first edition and the 1997 second edition (published by Baltos lankos in Vilnius). Without access to the poet’s manuscript, I follow the first edition and treat its page breaks within a poem as stanza breaks. Both editions share similar line breaks and line lengths, which I generally preserve. Pūkelevičiūtė’s epigraph from Leaves of Grass may partly explain why one of her contemporary translators included some longer, Whitmanesque lines in English versions of Metūgės poems, though I could not find relevant documentation.
     A selection of my poem translations can be seen on this website, so thank you to my husband, Seymour Kellerman, for co-creating New Shoots 100: Poetry of Birutė Pūkelevičiūtė to celebrate the poet’s birth centennial in 2023.
     I am grateful to others as well: translator Birutė Bersėnienė for her perspective on thorny linguistic questions; my sister, Audra Misiūnienė, for material about the poet’s work; Nijolė Petrauskienė and her daughter Ugnė for a copy of Atradimo ruduo [autumn of discovery], Pūkelevičiūtė’s second book of poetry (published in 1990 and not fully translated).
    Thanks also to Tom Daley, Laraine Flemming, Jean Martin, and Ralph Pennell for their insightful feedback.
    Finally, thank you to Archbishop Gintaras Grušas, the poet’s copyright holder, for permission to publish and to Virginija Babonaitė-Paplauskienė, an effective liaison and Pūkelevičiūtė enthusiast.

Selected Resources in English

Comments
Please send comments to Aušra Kubilius (Massachusetts, USA): ausmkub@gmail.com