Although the city in the title of this sensitive collection refers to Vilniusthe capital of Lithuania City of Ash serves as a universal geography of thecontempo... » 

Although the city in the title of this sensitive collection refers to Vilniusthe capital of Lithuania City of Ash serves as a universal geography of thecontemporary soul in an urban context built on the fragments of the past.Through his poetry Eugenijus Alisanka searches for personal and historicalmeaning within the framework of time recognizing both the demands of the selfand the impossibility of avoiding what came before whether human or cultural.Lithuanian poetry is known for the melodiousness it achieves through rhyme andassonance but Alisanka favors a more modern approach. His free verse defyingtraditional capitalization and punctuation may be read as a rebellion conscious or unconscious against the regulations imposed by the LanguageCommission in Lithuania which regulates such matters. Alisankas poems areneither surrealistic nor stream of consciousness but are like citiesthemselves concatenations of non sequiturs. «