You can fish out dinner, a line, a poem, or even an entire novel. Die-hard fishermen, if you ask them, will confirm that it is the best kind of meditation, being here and now, and all the other fashionably sounding mental states that have been practiced by people since time immemorial. We are blessed here in Lithuania – water bodies can be reached, if not by hand, then by bus, bicycle or on foot. And if the fishing rod doesn’t stick, you can simply rest your eyes watching the splashes, circles, waves, or smooth mirror-like lake water. We thank the staff of the Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum for this photo album, which contains meaningful and inspiring summer moments of our poets and prose writers.
“I have forgotten the women I had been involved with, but I cannot forget a fish that broke loose years ago,” poet and prose writer Albinas Žukauskas (1912–1987) told his colleague Sigitas Geda once. He told it to others too, “Many good ideas, thoughts, images, rhymes, tropes are sprinkled by the rivers, ponds, and lake reeds. You try to collect as many of them as you can! Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you fail and return without a catch, whatever it may be.” Unfortunately, we do not know where this photo was taken, but the poet loved many Lithuanian rivers. (MLLM archives)
Very different from the loners with fishing rods is writer Balys Sruoga (1896–1947) depicted here with his daughter Dalia Sruogaitė and a puppy named Dzingulis near the Nemunas in Kaunas, where the family lived at the time, around 1933. (MLLM archives)
The most exotic photograph in the album comes from North America! Kaunas-born neo-romantic poet Jonas Aistis (1904–1973) went to study in France back in 1936 and after the war, in 1946 he moved to the US. This shot is from Canada, and the poet’s posture signals that fishing is not just a light hobby for him. (MLLM archives)
This is not the only photograph of the semi-naked avant-garde poet Kazys Binkis (1893–1942) stored in the Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum. We certainly saw postcards from the beaches of Kaunas. However, frame no. 04 from Pakruojis district taken around 1933, is striking in its seriousness. Be sure to visit the museum’s attic exhibition about this poet and Keturi vėjai! (MLLM archives)
“The Šventoji river flowed in the poet’s heart”, we find this headline about Pranas Raščius (1932–1987) in the press. We were impressed not only by the photo from his fishing trip in Žeimena (1974) but also by the fisherman’s diary.
Another foreign image comes from the United States of America, where Marius Katiliškis (1914–1980) moved after the war and married Liūnė Sutema. Here, the writer, who also had to work as a gravedigger in emigration, is fishing with their daughter Agnė. The photo was taken around 1966. (MLLM archives)
Instead of P.S., there is the poem “The Fisherman”, written in ink on a small piece of paper. It’s undated, but possibly written around 1920 and dedicated to the poet, playwright, and journalist Juozas Butkus (1893–1947) who used to write under the pseudonym Butkų Juzė. (MLLM archives)
