Gunārs Saliņš
Latvian poet
Died when: 86 years 69 days (1034 months)Star Sign: Taurus
Gunars Saliņš (21 April 1924 – 29 June 2010) was a modernist poet within the Latvian lyric poetry tradition.He became a leading voice of the "" (Elles ķēķis) - a Latvian emigre artist community in the U.S. which flourished in the 1950s and 60s, named after the neighborhood in New York where it originated.
In his youth, he was inspired by the Latvian poet Aleksandrs Čaks and later by writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Guillaume Apollinaire, Federico García Lorca, and Dylan Thomas.
Saliņš' imagery playfully explored transformational and metaphysical elements in this world and beyond, often incorporating his personal experiences with allusions to myth, art, and ancient Latvian folklore - a process he referred to as "orpheism".
Gunars Saliņš' poetry was widely circulated within the Latvian diaspora post-WWII; later his work was rediscovered and championed in Latvia in the post-Soviet era.
In 2000, Saliņš was awarded the Order of the Three Stars by the Republic of Latvia.
