Imants Ziedonis

Born May 3, 1933, in Ragatsiems, in what is now Tukums Raion. Soviet Latvian poet. Member of the CPSU since 1962.

Ziedonis graduated from the philology department of the University of Latvia in 1959 and from the Higher Literary Courses in 1964. He was first published in 1956. His first poetry collection, The Earth and the Dream, was published in 1961, followed by the collections The Heart’s Dynamite (1963), I Enter Into Myself (1968), and How It Burns as a Candle (1971). Ziedonis’ poetry is polemic and has a contemporary ring, including both romantic daring and philosophic meditation; his poetics combine classical tradition with a search for new means of expression and new rhythms. Ziedonis’ prose essays, such as The Poet’s Diary (1965; Russian translation, 1968)and Kurzemite (1970), deal with modern themes. In 1970 his collection of miniatures in prose, The Epiphanies, was published. Ziedonis has translated into Latvian works of A. A. Blok, V. V. Mayakovsky, V. A. Lugovskoi, P. Sevak, and I. Drach. He was awarded the State Prize of the Latvian SSR in 1967.