Akhmatova: Selected Poems

A Gift Of Akhmatova

I received the lovely Folio Society edition of the Selected Poems of Anna Akhmatova as a gift and was moved deeply. It was the first reading I had done of the works of this Russian poet. This edition has a history that is worth mentioning. In 1985, Ohio University Press published the Selected Poems with translations by D.M. Thomas under the title "You Will Hear Thunder." Vintage republished the book in 2009, and it remains available in an inexpensive paperback. The Folio Society published its edition in 2016. It consists of the Thomas translation and notes on the poems together with a new introduction by Elimear McBride. The book comes in a slipcase, is a joy to read and hold, and includes seven illustrations and photographs. It is expensive but a wonderful book to own and to receive as a gift.

The book includes a selection of Akhmatova's (1889 -- 1966) poetry from 1909 through the early 1960s. Her work is both intimate, expressivist, and personal and also gives a deeply poetical response to the wars and terrors of the first half of the Twentieth Century, including both World Wars, the Russian Revolution, and the terrors and purges of Communism. Akhmatova lived and suffered through them.

The Selected Poems includes works from seven collections; "Evening", "Rosary", "White Flock", "Plantain", "Anno Domini", "Reed" and "The Seventh Book" together with two great long works, "Requiem" and the "Poem Without a Hero." In her earlier works, Akhmatova became recognized as a major figure in the "Silver Age" of Russian literature in the years just before the Revolution. Her poems from this period tend to be short. They focus on her unhappy relationship with her first husband, killed by the communists in 1921 and with her lovers. The poems describe places in Old Russia, tend to be concentrated, and are full of lyricism and passion.

Following the Russian Revolution, the passion continues. Akhmatova, her former husband, and her son, suffered continued pressure and persecution from the new regime. Her poems continue to describe her life and her love affairs and also assume a political tone of the sufferings engendered by wars and by communism. For many years, Akhmatova was forbidden to publish and her poems were recited and preserved by memory.

The long poem "Requiem" depicts the experience of the poet and of countless others during the Soviet purges of 1937 -- 1938. In her introduction, Akhmatova writes:

"In the fearful years of the Yezov terror I spent seventeen months in prison queues in Leningrad. One day somebody 'identified me. Besides me, in the queue, there was a woman with blue lips. She had, of course, never heard of me; but she suddenly come out of that trance so common to us all and whispered in my ear (everybody spoke in whispers there): 'Can you describe this?' And I said 'Yes, I can.' And then something like the shadow of a smile crossed what had once been her face."

This long poem is moving and accessible. Akhmatova did indeed describe the scene, as she told her fell0w-prisoner she could.

The long "Poem without a Hero", while also moving and deeply personal, is modernist and often opaque. It includes many literary allusions and allusions to the poet's own life. The details and the individual sections of the work frequently are spare and taut. The poem describes the Siege of Leningrad. In the process, Ahkmatova reflects on her own life, on earlier history, and on the tragedies of the Twentieth Century. She wrote: "I frequently hear of certain absurd interpretations of 'Poem without a Hero'. And I have been advised to make it clearer. This I decline to do. It contains no third, seventh, or twenty-ninth thoughts. I shall neither explain nor change anything. What is written is written." The poem shows, among other things, the influence of the poetry of T.S. Elliott.

In additional to the personal poems and the historical meditations, many of Akhmatova's poems describe figures such as Sophocles, Dante, Beatrice, Rachel, Lot's Wife, and Cleopatra. Here is a late poem, "Last Rose", written in 1962 that Akhmatova read to Robert Frost during his visit to the Soviet Union.

"Bowing down to the ground with Morozova,
Dancing with the head of a lover,
Flying from Dido's Pyre in smoke
To burn with Joan at the stake --

Lord! can't you see I'm weary
Of this rising and dying and living.
Take it all, but once more bring me close
To sense the freshness of this crimson rose,"

I was glad to get to know something of Akhmatova through the thoughtful gift of the Folio Society book. Readers without the good fortune of the gift, may make the poet's acquaintance in the earlier Vintage paperback edition of her selected poems.

Robin Friedman