Jurgita Jasponytė was born in 1981 in Zarasai. She had recieved a BA in Lithuanian philology and an MA in literature. She works as a librarian in Vilnius, raising her daughters Ugnė and Jūrė Jotvilė. Her poetry collection Šaltupė (the name of a Zarasai street, meaning “cold river”) won the Lithuanian Writer’s Union First Book Contest. In 2015, she won the Zigmas Gėlė Prize for best poetic debut.
Her second poetry collection Vartai Auštrieji (The Sharp Gates of Dawn) was published in 2019 and was awarded Vladas Šlaitas Prize and also Vilnius Mayor Prize for poems about Vilnius.
The poet is a very original reciter of poetry, imbuing her poems with the tones of folklore songs. Jasponytė’s works have been translated into English, German, Latvian, Russian, Georgian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.
Photo (c): Gediminas Kajėnas