Raimonda Šūmakarienė

poet • writer

About

Raimonda Šūmakarienė is a Lithuanian poet based in Vilnius. Her work explores the inner life of the individual and its relationship with time, memory, and everyday existence.Her poetry moves between the urgency of the outside world and the slower rhythms of inner life, between the longing for closeness and solitude, the fragility of existence and the search for meaning. She is drawn to what often remains unspoken: hidden contradictions, quiet experiences, and the subtle shifts in our relationship with ourselves and the world.In her poems, ordinary details open onto existential questions. What matters is not only what happens, but also what remains afterward – the echo of an experience, a silence, an almost imperceptible change.In 2026, her poetry was published in the Peruvian literary publications Santa Rabia Poetry and Revista Kametsa. Her work has also been selected for inclusion in the second volume of the international poetry anthology La Caravana del Rayo, scheduled for publication in 2027.She is currently working on the manuscript of her first poetry collection.

SELECTED POETRY

an old woman
has lived in me since childhoodshe wants no noise
no hurryonly silenceonly a slow morning by the window
hands
with nothing left to prove
eyes
that no longer search for themselves in othersi have always longed for the time
when a person grows quiet
not from sadness
but from understandingi waitfor a rocking chair
and a gaze into the distancefor gray hair
and the words of this poem
upon my facefor what awaits the soul
when the body finally grows tired
of being earth

***what if tomorrow you woke
and remembered nothing —
who would you be?would you still be you —
or only a body carrying a name
it does not recognize?if memory fell silent,
your own would lose their name,
a stranger — their distance.and what if the one you call your own today
passed by,
one among all the others —would you turn around?

PUBLICATIONS

Santa Rabia Poetry · Peru
“Si mañana despertaras” and 2 other poems
No. 198 · 2nd September issue · September 2026Revista Kametsa · Peru
5 poems
Número Astral 1 · September 2026La Caravana del Rayo · Peru
International print poetry anthology · Volume II
2027 · Work selected for publicationTrobairitz Magazine · Argentina
Poetry · Selected for forthcoming publication

Contact

For publication inquiries, invitations to literary events, creative residencies, and other professional opportunities:[email protected]