Baiba E. Bičole (May 1931 – December 24, 2021) was a Latvian-born American poet.

Biography

Baiba E. Bičole was born in

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

on May 1931, to Semigallian parents who were both literary critics - her father was a literary historian and her mother a poet and essayist. Her family fled the 1944 Soviet invasion of Latvia and emigrated to the US in 1950. Bičole became part of the " Hell's Kitchen artists" school of Latvian exile poets, centered around the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

area. Her first volume of poetry, ''Atrita,'' was published in 1966 and won the fourth biennial Zinaīda Lazda Prize for Poetry in 1967. Her other collections include ''Ceļos ''(1969), ''Burot'' ("To Cast Spells", 1976), ''Grie'os'' ("I Turn", 1981), and ''Atgriežos'' ("I Return", 1991). She also served as associate editor of the

Latvian language Latvian ( ), also known as Lettish, is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken in the Baltic region. It is the language of Latvians and the official language of Latvia as well as ...

New York newspaper '' Laiks'' ("Time"). Bičole married the Latvian artist Ilmārs Rumpēters and they had three children, Arvils, Artis, and Rita. Arvils Rumpēters was also a poet and died in 2000. Bičole died at her apartment in

Rockville, Maryland Rockville is a city that serves as the county seat of Montgomery County, Maryland, and is part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The 2020 census tabulated Rockville's population at 67,117, making it the fifth-largest community in ...

on December 24, 2021, at the age of 90.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bicole, Baiba 1931 births 2021 deaths Latvian women poets Latvian World War II refugees Writers from Riga Latvian emigrants to the United States