Kārlis Vērdiņš (1979) is a Latvian poet, literary theoretician, author of research papers, monographs, and several collections of poetry, as well as an editor of various publications. Vērdiņš has pursued a successful academic path, has a Ph.D. in Philology from University of Latvia (2009), and is known for his well-balanced reviews, his research on the prose-poem sub-genre and other subjects in Latvian literary culture (The Social and Political Dimensions of the Latvian Prose Poem, 2010). Vērdiņš is among the Latvian poets most often seen on international literary platforms, he is involved in music projects, and his contribution to art is not limited to Latvian language – he translates English and American modernists, has translated several works from Russian, including poems of the well-known creative collective Orbita. His own poems have been included in various collections in English, as well as been translated into Lithuanian, Swedish, Czech, Polish, Slovenian, Basque, and other languages. One of his most touching poems Come to Me was listed by the experts at the Southbank Centre among 50 greatest modern love poems of our day. Kārlis Vērdiņš' poetry can be viewed to be gentle, vivid and intimate; it often reveals uncomfortable truths in a piercing, playful, highly relatable way. Among his subjects is love, sex, coming to terms with one's self, all of which he talks about with a great deal of compassion, wit, and sense of irony. Poet and critic Gregory Woods has commented that "his first person is singularly hard to pin down, apparently detached while involved, precise while vague, inventing stuff while accurately recording memory". Vērdiņš has been called “the most honest Latvian poet of his generation” by his peers.