Čaks, Aleksandrs - Between Two Rains

Poetry of Aleksandrs Čaks (1901–1950) -- a renowned Latvian poet and prose writer who wrote in Latvian (real name Aleksandrs Čadarainis). He was published from 1925 onward. Recognized as an urban poet, a chronicler of working-class suburbs, and a master of free verse. The most productive period of his creative work was the 1930s, during the era of Latvia’s first independence.

Vasil Siomucha: "Aleksandrs Čaks is an extraordinary poet: gentle, delicate, tender, and not malicious. Reading Čaks is both painful and pleasant—he has a beneficial effect on the soul. In my opinion, in the twentieth century no other poet wrote quite like this. Čaks belongs to the same brilliant constellation of poets of the 1920s–30s as Pablo Neruda, Paul Éluard, Federico García Lorca, and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

I would even venture to say that although he died relatively young, he died at the right time (in 1950), because I do not know what he would have done under Soviet rule! His postwar poems already scarcely differ from the poetry of the Stalinist era, shaped by the dictates of the time rather than by the heart. At that point, even he was no longer sincere.

I translated Čaks for more than ten years—poem after poem. And, of course, I could not help but absorb his spirit. It seems that Čaks truly loved people. Perhaps this is characteristic of all very stout people."