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Žodžiai ir Raidės

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poezija

84 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

40 people want to read

About the author

Jonas Mekas

113 books195 followers
Jonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet and artist who has often been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema." His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals world-wide.

In 1944, Mekas left Lithuania because of war. En route, his train was stopped in Germany and he and his brother, Adolfas Mekas (1925–2011), were imprisoned in a labor camp in Elmshorn, a suburb of Hamburg, for eight months. The brothers escaped and were detained near the Danish border where they hid on a farm for two months until the end of the war. After the war, Mekas lived in displaced person camps in Wiesbaden and Kassel. From 1946 to 1948, he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz and at the end of 1949, he emigrated with his brother to the U.S., settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. Two weeks after his arrival, he borrowed the money to buy his first Bolex 16mm camera and began to record moments of his life. He discovered avant-garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel’s pioneering Cinema 16, and he began curating avant-garde film screenings at Gallery East on Avenue A and Houston Street, and a Film Forum series at Carl Fisher Auditorium on 57th Street.

In 1954, together with his brother Adolfas Mekas, he founded Film Culture, and in 1958, began writing his “Movie Journal” column for The Village Voice. In 1962, he co-founded Film-Makers' Cooperative and the Filmmakers' Cinematheque in 1964, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde film. He was part of the New American Cinema, with, in particular, fellow film-maker Lionel Rogosin. He was a close collaborator with artists such as Andy Warhol, Nico, Allen Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Salvador Dalí, and fellow Lithuanian George Maciunas.

In 1964, Mekas was arrested on obscenity charges for showing Flaming Creatures (1963) and Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour (1950). He launched a campaign against the censorship board, and for the next few years continued to exhibit films at the Film-makers’ Cinemathèque, the Jewish Museum, and the Gallery of Modern Art. From 1964 to 1967, he organized the New American Cinema Expositions, which toured Europe and South America and in 1966 joined 80 Wooster Fluxhouse Coop.

In 1970, Anthology Film Archives opened on 425 Lafayette Street as a film museum, screening space, and a library, with Mekas as its director. Mekas, along with Stan Brakhage, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, James Broughton, and P. Adams Sitney, began the ambitious Essential Cinema project at Anthology Film Archives to establish a canon of important cinematic works.

As a film-maker, Mekas' own output ranges from his early narrative film (Guns of the Trees, 1961) to “diary films” such as Walden (1969); Lost, Lost, Lost (1975); Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), Zefiro Torna (1992), and As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, which have been screened extensively at festivals and museums around the world.

Mekas expanded the scope of his practice with his later works of multi-monitor installations, sound immersion pieces and "frozen-film" prints. Together they offer a new experience of his classic films and a novel presentation of his more recent video work. His work has been exhibited at the 51st Venice Biennial, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, the Ludwig Museum, the Serpentine Gallery, and the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center.

In the year 2007, Mekas released one film every day on his website, a project he entitled "The 365 Day Project."[2] Since the 1970s, he has taught film courses at the New School for Social Research, MIT, Cooper Union, and New York University.

Mekas is also a well-known Lithuanian language poet and has published his poems and prose in Lithuanian, French, German, and English. He has published many of his journals and diaries including "I Had Nowhere to Go: Diaries, 1944–1954," and "Letters from Nowhere,

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5 stars
38 (33%)
4 stars
40 (34%)
3 stars
28 (24%)
2 stars
9 (7%)
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Profile Image for Ugnė.
327 reviews44 followers
June 5, 2021
Tai ne ta Meko poezija, kuri man labai patinka, tai raidinis performansas su poezija, kai norima parodyti, kad jis ne poetas, nors net ir šitaip pora eilėraščių man patiko.
Profile Image for Simona.
82 reviews18 followers
August 10, 2019
Lietuviškojo bukovskiškumo vaibai arba kažkas tokio. Jaučiuosi blogai taip vertindama Jono Meko kūrybą, bet tai nebuvo stipriausias jo leidinys.

"Poezija nėra
kalti
metaforas

Ar išrast
Naujus
Vaizdus...

Poezija yra
Eiti
Į pat
Vidurį

Ir
Dainuoti."
Profile Image for Agnė Pačekajė.
248 reviews36 followers
August 15, 2022
Jonas Mekas – kelių žodžių viename eilėrašty poezija, skaitai ir kažką matai, kažką tavyje pakrutina.
Profile Image for Justas.
22 reviews1 follower
Read
October 18, 2025
tikrai buvo žodžių ir tikrai buvo raidžių.

apie vyną, Eugenijų ir kitus angelus.
Profile Image for Ieva.
243 reviews147 followers
December 21, 2016
Read this on a bus ride home... It was ok, didn't love it. Still experimenting with poetry!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews

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