For more than fifty years, Imants Ziedonis (1933-2013) was one of Latvia’s most prominent poets and cultural leaders, especially as a provocative and influential voice during the decades of Soviet occupation. Each Day Catches Fire presents work from the rich period of the 1970s and 1980s, particularly the prose poems Ziedonis called “epiphanies”; he characterized them as “little impulses, sparks, in the light of which some moments in our life appear in unusually sharp relief” that he was prompted to write by the “positive life rhythm in Latvian folk songs.” Like the observant wayfarer he was, with whimsical, surprising imagery he guides us through the Latvian countryside and rural life he knew so intimately, depicts an animistic nature, comments on human relationships, and stresses the power of song and of words themselves.