Kad vecenīte ar meitiņu sarunājas: Ainas Pāvulītes un Lauras Andersones dzeja

Abstract

The article focuses on regional research, assessing the current cultural and literary process in Southern Kurzeme and Liepāja during the last three years and highlighting the perspective of the poetry process. In addition to the aspect of regional research, the theoretical and methodological basis of the article is the theories on the range of manifestations of feminine subjectivity and topics related to gender studies by feminist theorists and gender researchers. The article deals with the creative work of two Kurzeme poets, Aina Pāvulīte and Laura Andersone, who belong to different generations. The focus is on Pāvulīte’s (1942) newest poetry collection “Granny” (Vecenīte, 2018) and Andersone’s debut collection “A Girl Looks Up” (Meitiņa skatās augšup, 2020). At the level of both collections’ titles, the embedded momentum of female identity signals an encouraging conversation between two talented women, revealing the possible encounter of their inner women with another woman, making the boundaries of their identity transparent for flowing interaction in their writing. Poetry by both authors has been analysed comparatively, highlighting the characteristic manifestations of feminine subjectivity. The main research focus is on assessing the poetry themes, the characteristic motifs, and the specifics of the poetics of the two authors. The distinctive poetry images creating the conception of the lyrical subject and common and differing elements in lyrical subjects’ value system in both poets’ works are emphasised. The article analyses the formative elements of the poetic chronotope and the path of female identity formation and consciousness, based on the conceptually different experiences surrounding the identity of “granny” and “girl”, highlighting the existential dialectic intersections of the indirect feminine dialogue.