Even when writing poetry, I still remain an architect / LR3 / / Latvijas Radio

“The moment you have finished your written work and given it to people in printed form, this work no longer belongs to you,” says architect, poet and officer of the Cross of Appreciation Gunta Šnipke. On the morning of the holiday, we talk about Liepāja, traveling the world, texts and also listen to some newer verses.

Orests Silabriedis: Our conversation takes place on the morning of the fourth of May, so I will ask: do you remember where you were in the distant 1990, when many people stood at the radios and counted the votes?

Gunta Šnipke: I counted the votes in front of the TV with a three-and-a-half-month-old child in my lap, and I still have tears in my eyes when I think about it. Remembering these events every year brings a great thrill… Many of our generation will probably say that they couldn’t even believe that it happened.

I can say about my city – Riga – that in the nineties there was such an upheaval and the time of a completely different city came. How was Liepāja?

It even seems to me that these changes started a little earlier in Liepāja than elsewhere in Latvia. Moreover, in all areas, including my direct work, I am an architect. I was working in design at the time, and there were many processes of liberation. We had suddenly realized that the city was ours, and there were various activities to improve the environment of Liepāja. It was a good time.

How does Liepāja generally react to changes? Is the city embracing change? It likes to “dress up”?

There is a saying that I have formulated for myself – but it seems to me that it is not only characteristic of Liepāja, but also of other cities – that Latvian people need everything to change for the better, without making any changes. It also describes a Liepāja citizen and his attitude towards the city environment. On the one hand, it’s bad there, it’s not good, it’s not comfortable, there’s something out of date, everyone talks about it, but when you get attached to something, it immediately says – leave it alone! (smiles) The changes in the urban environment are easier to perceive by those from Liepāja who have been here for generations. And the explanation for this is that they know through the memory of generations that the urban environment changes all the time and that it is only logical that each century or decade comes with something of its own. By the way, the urban environment of Liepāja is very characteristic precisely because what we call the historical environment is also very heterogeneous. You walk down one street and many eras come towards you! It’s not like in Riga, where the blocks are, for example, Art Nouveau, or there is a place where only eclecticism dominates. Or Old Riga, where older times dominate. In Liepāja, everything is somehow shuffled, so it is logical for the shuffle to continue even today. If something is built today, it should look like today, not something…

… simulated?

Yes. With very rare exceptions. I can assume that the Black-headed House was built in Riga, because the building itself was built at the time with the following lines: “If I ever have to fall down, you will raise me up again!” In Liepāja, there is one and only example that was very important and is also a similar urban legend – what is today called the Pavilion: it was a completely lost Art Nouveau pearl, but there were people who were able to restore it to the features of the city.

I will ask about writing. Do your two interests – architecture and writing – run parallel, or has one of them been given more attention at some point in your life? Are they two independent fields after all?

Then, when these fields meet in one person, there is no independence, because I clearly know that even when I write, I still remain an architect… And that, I would even say, is my special strength. But with the intensity of their occupation, writing has remained in the background at certain stages of life. Yes, it has been. But it’s hard for me to say whether it’s because I’ve been very busy at work, or because I’m not writing continuously – all the time from a place. I need to collect myself, and then I can write something again. Therefore, writing is for such waves.

You say – even being a poet, you remain an architect. The first thing that immediately comes to my mind is rhythm: have you purposefully thought about how to work with this rhythm, or does it come naturally?

It comes naturally. Although I tell everyone that I have no musical education, I have a very good musical ear, and therefore a sense of rhythm and such. To put it simply, it’s important to me. When I write a text, I read it in my mind. I mean, I write out loud in my thoughts.

Is it important to you to think and hope that the reader does the same? That he perceives your rhythm, that he reads and enjoys exactly what is in your text with all these repetitions of words, alternations of words?

You have my book next to you. If you had this question, you’ve got it.

I tried…

A writer cannot force the reader to read exactly as the writer intended. And there is another thing: if something is not read as the writer imagined, then [no rakstītāja puses] something is obviously not done to the end so that the reader reads the text exactly as the writer intended.

So let’s not blame the reader?

No way! Everyone has the right to understand something different in the text. Sometimes it even happens that, for example, an actor or simply a student reads my poem at an event, and I’m surprised – aha, is this and that there too? How interesting! I didn’t even notice! (laughs) It’s the same in music – each musician interprets the specific piece. And he has the right to do so. Once you have finished your written work and given it to people in printed form, that work is no longer yours. People have the right to read, perceive, accept, not accept, understand, not understand…

More in the audio recording.

The full text of the conversation will soon be available on the lsm.lv portal.