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The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
Initially published in 1990, when the New York Times Book Review named it one of fourteen "Best Books of the Year," Judith Hemschemeyer's translation of The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova is the definitive edition, and has sold over 13,000 copies, making it one of the most successful poetry titles of recent years.
This reissued and revised printing features a new biographical essay as well as expanded notes to the poems, both by Roberta Reeder, project editor and author of Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet (St. Martin's Press, 1994). Encyclopedic in scope, with more than 800 poems, 100 photographs, a historical chronology, index of first lines, and a bibliography. The Complete Poems will be the definitive English language collection of Akhmatova for many years to come.
This reissued and revised printing features a new biographical essay as well as expanded notes to the poems, both by Roberta Reeder, project editor and author of Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet (St. Martin's Press, 1994). Encyclopedic in scope, with more than 800 poems, 100 photographs, a historical chronology, index of first lines, and a bibliography. The Complete Poems will be the definitive English language collection of Akhmatova for many years to come.
948 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
127 people are currently reading
10061 people want to read
About the author
Anna Akhmatova
425 books942 followersalso known as: Анна Ахматова
Personal themes characterize lyrical beauty of noted work of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, pseudonym of Anna Andreevna Gorenko; the Soviet government banned her books between 1946 and 1958.
People credit this modernist of the most acclaimed writers in the canon.
Her writing ranges from short lyrics to universalized, ingeniously structured cycles, such as Requiem (1935-40), her tragic masterpiece about the Stalinist terror. Her work addresses a variety of themes including time and memory, the fate of creative women, and the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism. She has been widely translated into many languages, and is one of the best-known Russian poets of 20th century.
In 1910, she married the poet, Nikolay Gumilyov, who very soon left her for lion hunting in Africa, the battlefields of World War I, and the society of Parisian grisettes. Her husband did not take her poems seriously, and was shocked when Alexander Blok declared to him that he preferred her poems to his. Their son, Lev, born in 1912, was to become a famous Neo-Eurasianist historian.
Nikolay Gumilyov was executed in 1921 for activities considered anti-Soviet; Akhmatova then married a prominent Assyriologist Vladimir Shilejko, and then an art scholar, Nikolay Punin, who died in the Stalinist Gulag camps. After that, she spurned several proposals from the married poet, Boris Pasternak.
After 1922, Akhmatova was condemned as a bourgeois element, and from 1925 to 1940, her poetry was banned from publication. She earned her living by translating Leopardi and publishing essays, including some brilliant essays on Pushkin, in scholarly periodicals. All of her friends either emigrated or were repressed.
Her son spent his youth in Stalinist gulags, and she even resorted to publishing several poems in praise of Stalin to secure his release. Their relations remained strained, however. Akhmatova died at the age of 76 in St. Peterburg. She was interred at Komarovo Cemetery.
There is a museum devoted to Akhmatova at the apartment where she lived with Nikolai Punin at the garden wing of the Fountain House (more properly known as the Sheremetev Palace) on the Fontanka Embankment, where Akhmatova lived from the mid 1920s until 1952.
Personal themes characterize lyrical beauty of noted work of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, pseudonym of Anna Andreevna Gorenko; the Soviet government banned her books between 1946 and 1958.
People credit this modernist of the most acclaimed writers in the canon.
Her writing ranges from short lyrics to universalized, ingeniously structured cycles, such as Requiem (1935-40), her tragic masterpiece about the Stalinist terror. Her work addresses a variety of themes including time and memory, the fate of creative women, and the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism. She has been widely translated into many languages, and is one of the best-known Russian poets of 20th century.
In 1910, she married the poet, Nikolay Gumilyov, who very soon left her for lion hunting in Africa, the battlefields of World War I, and the society of Parisian grisettes. Her husband did not take her poems seriously, and was shocked when Alexander Blok declared to him that he preferred her poems to his. Their son, Lev, born in 1912, was to become a famous Neo-Eurasianist historian.
Nikolay Gumilyov was executed in 1921 for activities considered anti-Soviet; Akhmatova then married a prominent Assyriologist Vladimir Shilejko, and then an art scholar, Nikolay Punin, who died in the Stalinist Gulag camps. After that, she spurned several proposals from the married poet, Boris Pasternak.
After 1922, Akhmatova was condemned as a bourgeois element, and from 1925 to 1940, her poetry was banned from publication. She earned her living by translating Leopardi and publishing essays, including some brilliant essays on Pushkin, in scholarly periodicals. All of her friends either emigrated or were repressed.
Her son spent his youth in Stalinist gulags, and she even resorted to publishing several poems in praise of Stalin to secure his release. Their relations remained strained, however. Akhmatova died at the age of 76 in St. Peterburg. She was interred at Komarovo Cemetery.
There is a museum devoted to Akhmatova at the apartment where she lived with Nikolai Punin at the garden wing of the Fountain House (more properly known as the Sheremetev Palace) on the Fontanka Embankment, where Akhmatova lived from the mid 1920s until 1952.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
November 11, 2020
I never stopped writing poems. In them is my link with time, with the new life of my people. When I wrote them, I believed in the resounding rhythms reflected in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived in these years and saw events which cannot be equalled.
V. 1.0
A drawing of Akhmatova by Amadeo Modigliani, pictured in this book. Akhmatova met Modigliani in Paris in 1910. Though she was recently married, it has been said (by Wiki for example) that the two had a love affair. I might find further remarks about this in notes and the index of the book being reviewed, but I’m unable to explore that possibility … because the book is almost 2000 miles away.
aside
I find myself in Kalispell Montana, about to embark on a several days tour of Glacier National Park, with the prospect of very little internet access during the week.
I’ve been struggling with this review for months. It seems impossible to finish. There is no end to what I find fascinating about Akhmatova’s life and poetry.
Therefore, tonight, the “short” part of the review which was mostly written long ago will be submitted as the entire review. I may add more later. I’ve got much more written. This may be only a first installment. But … well, there are bears in Glacier NP. So …
short review
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko was born in the Ukraine in 1889 (the same year that another who had a profound effect on her country was born – Adolf Hitler). Her family soon moved to Tsarskoye Selo, near (Saint) Petersburg (changed to ‘Petrograd’ in 1914, Leningrad in 1924, and in 1991 back to Saint Petersburg); this is where Anna grew up.
She began writing poetry in 1900. In 1907 her first poem was published, under the name “Anna G.”. Her next publications, four years later, were under the name “Akhmatova”.
Akhmatova had six editions of her poetry published in the years 1912 – 1940. All these poems, plus many more unpublished poems, fragments, and even her most famous poem - Poem Without a Hero - that were not published in her lifetime in Russia, are included in the book reviewed. As far as I know, this is the only edition of the complete poems of Akhmatova available in English.
Akhmatova’s poetry is usually described as modern, though exactly what that means, especially in the context of Russian poetry, is beyond my ken. But it’s true that according to my diffuse ideas of modern poetry, she is a modern poet. Her poems are often connected to people she knew, admired, loved – and to events, many terrible, that she experienced in her life. Many of these events were shared with the Russian people; others were peculiar to her own circumstances, both as a poet and as a woman.
I have no way of judging the translations by Judith Hemschemeyer. However, Ms. Hemschemeyer contributes a 16-page Preface to the volume; the larger part of this is her personal view of the reasons that contribute to the power of Akhmatova’s poems; the last few pages are a cogent description of the task of translating the poems into English, and the special characteristics of Russian language and grammar which present special challenges to a translator of poetry. I was quite impressed by this: “My first goal was to understand the poem; only then, I felt, could I present the poem to others. This took time – more than ten years – and at least several versions of each poem.
This book was the greatest challenge I’ve ever undertaken in reading poetry. If you, reader, would have compared it to the only two poetry books I’ve reviewed before (Sailing Alone Around the Room and Walking the Black Cat), you might have forecast that I would never finish it. But finish it I did, and I loved every step I took on that long path.
If you love poetry yourself, I couldn’t recommend a thick, complete edition of any poet’s works more highly than this one.
To be continued? Maybe. If and when I add any significant writing, the version number at the top will change from V 1.0.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Kingdom
Random review: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death
Next review: Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. a woman remembers her efforts to help her cousin
Previous library review: Selected Stories Chekhov
Next library review: Life and Fate Vasily Grossman
V. 1.0
A drawing of Akhmatova by Amadeo Modigliani, pictured in this book. Akhmatova met Modigliani in Paris in 1910. Though she was recently married, it has been said (by Wiki for example) that the two had a love affair. I might find further remarks about this in notes and the index of the book being reviewed, but I’m unable to explore that possibility … because the book is almost 2000 miles away.
aside
I find myself in Kalispell Montana, about to embark on a several days tour of Glacier National Park, with the prospect of very little internet access during the week.
I’ve been struggling with this review for months. It seems impossible to finish. There is no end to what I find fascinating about Akhmatova’s life and poetry.
Therefore, tonight, the “short” part of the review which was mostly written long ago will be submitted as the entire review. I may add more later. I’ve got much more written. This may be only a first installment. But … well, there are bears in Glacier NP. So …
short review
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko was born in the Ukraine in 1889 (the same year that another who had a profound effect on her country was born – Adolf Hitler). Her family soon moved to Tsarskoye Selo, near (Saint) Petersburg (changed to ‘Petrograd’ in 1914, Leningrad in 1924, and in 1991 back to Saint Petersburg); this is where Anna grew up.
She began writing poetry in 1900. In 1907 her first poem was published, under the name “Anna G.”. Her next publications, four years later, were under the name “Akhmatova”.
Akhmatova had six editions of her poetry published in the years 1912 – 1940. All these poems, plus many more unpublished poems, fragments, and even her most famous poem - Poem Without a Hero - that were not published in her lifetime in Russia, are included in the book reviewed. As far as I know, this is the only edition of the complete poems of Akhmatova available in English.
Akhmatova’s poetry is usually described as modern, though exactly what that means, especially in the context of Russian poetry, is beyond my ken. But it’s true that according to my diffuse ideas of modern poetry, she is a modern poet. Her poems are often connected to people she knew, admired, loved – and to events, many terrible, that she experienced in her life. Many of these events were shared with the Russian people; others were peculiar to her own circumstances, both as a poet and as a woman.
I have no way of judging the translations by Judith Hemschemeyer. However, Ms. Hemschemeyer contributes a 16-page Preface to the volume; the larger part of this is her personal view of the reasons that contribute to the power of Akhmatova’s poems; the last few pages are a cogent description of the task of translating the poems into English, and the special characteristics of Russian language and grammar which present special challenges to a translator of poetry. I was quite impressed by this: “My first goal was to understand the poem; only then, I felt, could I present the poem to others. This took time – more than ten years – and at least several versions of each poem.
This book was the greatest challenge I’ve ever undertaken in reading poetry. If you, reader, would have compared it to the only two poetry books I’ve reviewed before (Sailing Alone Around the Room and Walking the Black Cat), you might have forecast that I would never finish it. But finish it I did, and I loved every step I took on that long path.
If you love poetry yourself, I couldn’t recommend a thick, complete edition of any poet’s works more highly than this one.
To be continued? Maybe. If and when I add any significant writing, the version number at the top will change from V 1.0.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Kingdom
Random review: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death
Next review: Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. a woman remembers her efforts to help her cousin
Previous library review: Selected Stories Chekhov
Next library review: Life and Fate Vasily Grossman
July 16, 2025
I read this entire 947 page collection of all of the great poet Anna Akhmatova’s poetry this year, book by book. Several of the books were not able to be published for decades, as Stalin forbid this. In many ways those decades correspond with the shock and horror for all Russians, many millions of whom were murdered and imprisoned. Part of this time Akhmatova wrote critical essays, and translations, and many were written from months spent outside prisons where her son Lev and hundreds of thousands of fellow political prisoners were incarcerated.
Of course any poet goes through many changes in their work over the course of a career, perhaps especially someone who has had her work banned, whose country has been decimated by Stalin, by WWII, her son Lev in prison. She was a poet adored for her poetry of love, lyrical romantic poems (that led to her being despised by more political figures. One of her husbands was killed for his political activity, and this changed her work, as did the imprisonment of her son Lev, and the whole trajectory of WWII, her censure and her rehabilitation as one of the greatest and most beloved poets in Russian history.
The Complete Poems was translated by Judith Hemschemeyer, who devoted seventeen years of her life to the unenviable task of taking her rich lyrical Russian language and conveying it into the more prosaic English. But this is now the definitive Russian to English edition. I can't read the original (though I have two record albums of her reading her own work that were given to me as gifts when I was there that are priceless, amazing), but the poetry is terrific.
Her first book was entitled Evening, published in 1911 when she was 22. It features mostly poems of love, and guided many a Russian couple for decades in their romances. Here’s my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...
Her second book was Rosary (1914), another collection of love poetry, mostly, that cemented her reputation as a nationally beloved pet. She has many lovers, marrying Nikolai Gumilyov, with whom they had her only son, Lev. Germany declared war (WWI) in 1914 , changing the country, changing her life, and poetry. Here’s my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...
Her third book, White Flock (1917), was about love, lost love, and the early years of the war:
On August 1, 1914, Russia was at war, and:
“We aged a hundred years
And this happened in a single hour.”
“Warm red liquid sprinkled the trampled fields.”
This is my review, but the tone of the poetry naturally changes of course as the shock and grief of war in the later poems overcomes the grief of lost love that we see in the earlier poems:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Plantain (1921) is a short collection, with love poems written to a lover even as her marriage to
Gumilyov disintegrated. She writes of the war but also is somewhat inhibited by censors, so she is subtle:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
During this time she was married to poet Gumilyov, divorcing in 1917, and so poems in the collection feature the separation and demise and divorce from him, and also her love of other men--Nikolay Nedoboro, Boris Anrep-- as Gumilyov was often gone from Russia, though he was also unfaithful to her.
In 1921 Gumilyov was executed for his political activity, and her fourth collection of poetry, Anno Domini MCMXXI (or, 1921) was published in 1923, filled with personal and national anguish:
“Everything has been plundered, betrayed, sold out
The wing of black death has flashed
Everything has been devoured by starving anguish. . .”
Here is my review of that book:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...
She published no poetry from 1925 until 1940, and only one more book was published in her lifetime, her work suppressed by Stalin, who was in power from the mid-twenties until his death in 1953. In 1940 she read some of her poems on a few occasions and while her son was in prison she shared some poems but she had always been writing, exiled for a time. She began to compose her fifth collection, Poem Without A Hero, formally and in earnest in 1940, reflecting on the war more and more, though it was not until 1963 that this collection would appear, and not in the Soviet Union officially until 1976, after her death in 1966. Here’s my review, with links to her reading her own work, portraits of the poet, a documentary:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"It happens like this: A kind of langour
A ceaseless striking of a clock is heard;
Far off, a dying peal of thunder. . ."
This my review of Reed, her sixth book, a collection of also long censored poems from the previous 20+ years:
". . . over pensive Lethe/ The reed, revived, might start to sing"--Akhmatova, 1940, the first poem in Reed
" . . . like a useless appendage, Leningrad
Swung from its prisons."
Outside a prison a woman asks her,
"Can you describe this?
And I answered, "Yes, I can."
That passage moved me, gave me chills about the necessity and power of witness, of testimony.
And here she does bear witness:
"I will be like the wives of the Streltsy
Howling under the Kremlin towers."
and
"But here, where I stood for three hundred hours
,And where they never unbolted the doors for me.
This, lest in blissful death
I forget the rumbling of the Black Marias,
Forget how that detested door slammed shut
And an old woman howled like a wounded animal."
"Mountains bow down to this grief,
Might rivers cease to flow."
"The stars of death stood above us
And innocent Russia writhed
Under bloody boots
And under the tires of the Black Marias." [the cars of the secret police]
Country/bodies/homes can be destroyed: ". . . moonlight terror overflows,/The whole city is in poisonous suspension"
but writing/art can bear testimony:
". . . the gift of all seasons, indestructible and true."
A book of poems in the light of millions murdered? It doesn't sound like much, but it's important to remember atrocity, as a warning to future generations.
This book begins for my money the most powerful poetry of Akhmatova, moving from the passionate and traditional poetry of her youth to the passionate and unbridled poetry of rage and despair and unbending love of country and humanity.
She also writes cautious but very clear tributes to dead or exiled poets, and she writes of fond memories of the Russia as she knew it growing up. Powerful poetry.
The next book in this complete poems collection is known as The Seventh Book, though it was never published separately, since Leon Trotsky (among others) thought she should be thrown out of the Writers Union and her work remain unpublished for decades. The collection here is a long one, comprised as it is of all these unpublished poems from 1936-1964. It took Stalin's death in 1953 for the literary establishment to begin to "rehabilitate" her and to recognize her as one of the most beloved poets of all time in Russia, one of the Big Four lyrical poets, including Marina Tsvetaeva, Nadezhda Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak.
There's homages to other poets, ars poetica, some powerful war-period poetry, and poems written in various places she lived for these decades. Song sequences. I love the photographs of her. In the early days she was so joyously a poet of nature and love; in this period grief is etched into her face, under the reign of the murderous Stalin and the siege of her beloved Leningrad.
First Long-Range Firing on Leningrad
"And people's colorful daily routine
Changed drastically."
"The birds of death are at the zenith
Who will rescue Leningrad"
and the aftermath:
"Everything still bore the marks
Of the recent calamity--
And through the rainbow of my last tears
I looked at my city."
From Moscow Trefoil:
"You will hear thunder and remember me."
Of course any poet goes through many changes in their work over the course of a career, perhaps especially someone who has had her work banned, whose country has been decimated by Stalin, by WWII, her son Lev in prison. She was a poet adored for her poetry of love, lyrical romantic poems (that led to her being despised by more political figures. One of her husbands was killed for his political activity, and this changed her work, as did the imprisonment of her son Lev, and the whole trajectory of WWII, her censure and her rehabilitation as one of the greatest and most beloved poets in Russian history.
The Complete Poems was translated by Judith Hemschemeyer, who devoted seventeen years of her life to the unenviable task of taking her rich lyrical Russian language and conveying it into the more prosaic English. But this is now the definitive Russian to English edition. I can't read the original (though I have two record albums of her reading her own work that were given to me as gifts when I was there that are priceless, amazing), but the poetry is terrific.
Her first book was entitled Evening, published in 1911 when she was 22. It features mostly poems of love, and guided many a Russian couple for decades in their romances. Here’s my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...
Her second book was Rosary (1914), another collection of love poetry, mostly, that cemented her reputation as a nationally beloved pet. She has many lovers, marrying Nikolai Gumilyov, with whom they had her only son, Lev. Germany declared war (WWI) in 1914 , changing the country, changing her life, and poetry. Here’s my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...
Her third book, White Flock (1917), was about love, lost love, and the early years of the war:
On August 1, 1914, Russia was at war, and:
“We aged a hundred years
And this happened in a single hour.”
“Warm red liquid sprinkled the trampled fields.”
This is my review, but the tone of the poetry naturally changes of course as the shock and grief of war in the later poems overcomes the grief of lost love that we see in the earlier poems:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Plantain (1921) is a short collection, with love poems written to a lover even as her marriage to
Gumilyov disintegrated. She writes of the war but also is somewhat inhibited by censors, so she is subtle:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
During this time she was married to poet Gumilyov, divorcing in 1917, and so poems in the collection feature the separation and demise and divorce from him, and also her love of other men--Nikolay Nedoboro, Boris Anrep-- as Gumilyov was often gone from Russia, though he was also unfaithful to her.
In 1921 Gumilyov was executed for his political activity, and her fourth collection of poetry, Anno Domini MCMXXI (or, 1921) was published in 1923, filled with personal and national anguish:
“Everything has been plundered, betrayed, sold out
The wing of black death has flashed
Everything has been devoured by starving anguish. . .”
Here is my review of that book:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...
She published no poetry from 1925 until 1940, and only one more book was published in her lifetime, her work suppressed by Stalin, who was in power from the mid-twenties until his death in 1953. In 1940 she read some of her poems on a few occasions and while her son was in prison she shared some poems but she had always been writing, exiled for a time. She began to compose her fifth collection, Poem Without A Hero, formally and in earnest in 1940, reflecting on the war more and more, though it was not until 1963 that this collection would appear, and not in the Soviet Union officially until 1976, after her death in 1966. Here’s my review, with links to her reading her own work, portraits of the poet, a documentary:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"It happens like this: A kind of langour
A ceaseless striking of a clock is heard;
Far off, a dying peal of thunder. . ."
This my review of Reed, her sixth book, a collection of also long censored poems from the previous 20+ years:
". . . over pensive Lethe/ The reed, revived, might start to sing"--Akhmatova, 1940, the first poem in Reed
" . . . like a useless appendage, Leningrad
Swung from its prisons."
Outside a prison a woman asks her,
"Can you describe this?
And I answered, "Yes, I can."
That passage moved me, gave me chills about the necessity and power of witness, of testimony.
And here she does bear witness:
"I will be like the wives of the Streltsy
Howling under the Kremlin towers."
and
"But here, where I stood for three hundred hours
,And where they never unbolted the doors for me.
This, lest in blissful death
I forget the rumbling of the Black Marias,
Forget how that detested door slammed shut
And an old woman howled like a wounded animal."
"Mountains bow down to this grief,
Might rivers cease to flow."
"The stars of death stood above us
And innocent Russia writhed
Under bloody boots
And under the tires of the Black Marias." [the cars of the secret police]
Country/bodies/homes can be destroyed: ". . . moonlight terror overflows,/The whole city is in poisonous suspension"
but writing/art can bear testimony:
". . . the gift of all seasons, indestructible and true."
A book of poems in the light of millions murdered? It doesn't sound like much, but it's important to remember atrocity, as a warning to future generations.
This book begins for my money the most powerful poetry of Akhmatova, moving from the passionate and traditional poetry of her youth to the passionate and unbridled poetry of rage and despair and unbending love of country and humanity.
She also writes cautious but very clear tributes to dead or exiled poets, and she writes of fond memories of the Russia as she knew it growing up. Powerful poetry.
The next book in this complete poems collection is known as The Seventh Book, though it was never published separately, since Leon Trotsky (among others) thought she should be thrown out of the Writers Union and her work remain unpublished for decades. The collection here is a long one, comprised as it is of all these unpublished poems from 1936-1964. It took Stalin's death in 1953 for the literary establishment to begin to "rehabilitate" her and to recognize her as one of the most beloved poets of all time in Russia, one of the Big Four lyrical poets, including Marina Tsvetaeva, Nadezhda Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak.
There's homages to other poets, ars poetica, some powerful war-period poetry, and poems written in various places she lived for these decades. Song sequences. I love the photographs of her. In the early days she was so joyously a poet of nature and love; in this period grief is etched into her face, under the reign of the murderous Stalin and the siege of her beloved Leningrad.
First Long-Range Firing on Leningrad
"And people's colorful daily routine
Changed drastically."
"The birds of death are at the zenith
Who will rescue Leningrad"
and the aftermath:
"Everything still bore the marks
Of the recent calamity--
And through the rainbow of my last tears
I looked at my city."
From Moscow Trefoil:
"You will hear thunder and remember me."
October 27, 2017
List of Illustrations
Translator's Acknowledgements
Publisher's Acknowledgements
Translator's Preface, by Judith Hemschemeyer
Mirrors and Masks: The Life and Poetic Works of Anna Akhmatova, by Roberta Reeder
Anna Akhmatova: A Memoir, by Isaiah Berlin
Chronology
Third Printing (Revised): New Poems and Revisions
Second Edition: New Poems and Revisions
Notes on the Text
Portfolio: Tsarskoye Selo
--Evening (1912)
(ADDITIONS)
--"I pray to the sunbeam from the window. . ."
Two Poems:
--1. "Both sides of the pillow. . ."
--2. "That same voice, that same gaze. . ."
Reading Hamlet:
--1. "Dust rose from the vacant lot. . ."
--2. "And as if by mistake. . ."
--"And when we had cursed each other. . ."
--First Return
--"I wept and repented. . ."
--"At the new moon he abandoned me. . ."
--"Moorka, don't go. . ."
Portfolio: Petersburg
--Rosary (1914)
(ADDITIONS)
--"I led my lover out to the hall. . ."
--"Can you forgive me these November days?"
--"I'm not asking for your love. . ."
--"'The palms of your hands are burning. . ."
--"You will live without misfortune. . ."
--White Flock (1917)
(ADDITIONS)
--"And it seems --- a human voice. . ."
--"When, in the gloomiest of capitals. . ."
--"How steep and resounding these bridges are. . ."
--"Why then did I used to hold you in my arms. . ."
--"I was born neither too early nor too late. . ."
--"I don't need much happiness. . ."
--"The city disappeared. . ."
--"Oh, there are unique words. . ."
--"I dream of him less often now, thank God. . ."
--"Not mystery and not grief. . ."
--"We will be together, darling, together. . ."
--"The dark road twisted. . ."
--"How I love, how I loved to look. . ."
--Plantain (1921)
(ADDITION)
--To Zara
--Anno Domini MCMXXI (1922)
Portfolio: Photo Biography
--Reed (1924-1940)
--Seventh Book (1936-1964)
--Odd Number
Epic and Dramatic Fragments and Long Poems
--From a Primeval Poem
Epic Motifs:
--I. "At that time I was a guest upon the earth. . ."
--II. "Having forsaken my homeland's sacred groves. . ."
--III. "Night came on and in the dark blue sky. . ."
--Fragment from. . . "The Russian Trianon"
--In Smolensk Cemetery
Northern Elegies:
--1. Prehistory
--2. "So here it is --- that autumn landscape. . ."
--3. "I, like a river. . ."
--4. "There are three ages to memories. . ."
--5. About the 1910's
--6. "It was dreadful to live in that house. . ."
--7. "And I have been silent, silent for thirty years. . ."
--Lyrical Digression on the Seventh Elegy
--At the Edge of the Sea
--The Way of All the Earth
from Prologue
--"Certainly no one in the world. . ."
--". . . I was the one forbidden book. . ."
--"Though you are three times more beautiful than angels. . ."
--"And you know, I agree to everything. . ."
--"Because I shared the primal darkness with you. . ."
--"However many tortures the other invented for me. . ."
--"This paradise, in which we did not sin. . ."
--"You frighten with caresses. . ."
--"Do not take yourself by the hand. . ."
--"Release me if just for a minute. . ."
--"The world never perceived such poverty. . ."
--"We tasted the forbidden knowledge. . ."
--POEM WITHOUT A HERO: A Triptych (1940-1962)
--Additions (Stanzas not included in the text of 'Poem Without a Hero', and poems relating to its composition)
Portfolio: The Artist's Muse
Uncollected Poems and Fragments
1904-1917
--"I plucked lilies, lovely and fragrant. . ."
--"I walked with you over the black abyss. . ."
--"Oh, hush! these strange, thrilling words. . ."
--"I know how to love. . ."
--Spring Air Imperiously Courageous
--"On his hands are lots of shining rings. . ."
--"My night --- feverish ravings about you. . ."
--From the First Notebook
--"Either I stayed with you. . ."
--"Your crazy eyes. . ."
--"They came and said: 'Your brother died.'"
--"For you, Aphrodite, I'll compose a dance. . ."
--"In my room lives a beautiful. . ."
--"On the little table, tea, rich pastries. . ."
--"I am fatal for those who are tender and young. . ."
--"For a long time I stood at Hell's heavy gates. . ."
--Solitude
--In the Forest
--The Old Portrait
--"The old oak rustles about the past. . ."
--"You are with me again. . ."
--"In the corner an old man resembling a ram. . ."
--"When we die it won't become darker. . ."
--"You've spent the whole day at the window. . ."
--"As if with a huge, heavy hammer. . ."
--"Come and take a look at me. . ."
--(To F.K. Sologub)
--"The corolla's needles catch fire. . ."
--"We will still add to this. . ."
--"In your fine hand you are writing Lise. . ."
--The Reply
--"I won't say anything, I won't open the door. . ."
--Latest Letter
--"I saw the field after the hail. . ."
--"And the fever at evening. . ."
--"Beyond the hazy pattern of the windowpanes. . ."
--"I'm not embarrassed by offensive remarks. . ."
--"And through everything and every moment. . ."
--"He smiled, standing on the threshold. . ."
--"Like someone who has left by the western gate. . ."
--From Old Verses
--"How long the New Year's holiday. . ."
--"Empty white Yuletide. . ."
--To Tamara Platonovna Karsavina
--"Some great misfortune happened to me here. . ."
--"Nowhere did I find my beloved. . ."
--"From you came uneasiness. . ."
--"You, the leader, standing by the spring. . ."
--". . . it is the one who gave me the zither. . ."
--"The bare, bleak days pass peacefully. . ."
--Last Will and Testament
--"The evening bell on the monastery wall. . ."
--"Flowers, cold from the dew. . ."
--"He did not kill, did not curse. . ."
--White Night
--"It's time to buy land. . ."
--"They are bearing someone's yellow coffin out. . ."
--"Because sin is what I glorified. . ."
--"In the interval between thunderstorms. . ."
--"I don't like flowers. . ."
--"And in the Kievian church of Divine Wisdom. . ."
--"On the right, the Dneiper. . ."
--Fragment
--"With the first sound falling from the piano. . ."
--"If the moon does not wander through the sky. . ."
--"Marvelous destiny named us. . ."
--". . . You can't make a soul mortal. . ."
--"You won't divine it immediately. . ."
--"In the city of the gatekeeper of paradise. . ."
--"In this church I heard the Canon. . ."
--"On the drawbridge. . ."
1919-1941
--"I am bitter and old. . ."
--"The tomtits sing well. . ."
--"Good fortune flew away from me. . ."
--"Isn't it strange that we knew him?"
--"A light beer has been brewed. . ."
--"That evening should be put to death. . ."
--"Hello, Piter. It's bad, old boy. . ."
--"The devil didn't betray me. . ."
--"How boring to have to defend. . ."
--"It has been seven years. . ."
--"I will not profane my lips with your name. . ."
--"Here the most beautiful girls fight. . ."
--"It would be so easy to abandon this life. . ."
--"And you will forgive me everything. . ."
--"Forgive me, that I manage badly. . ."
--To the Caucasus
--"And I will wander here at night. . ."
--"Ah! --- where are those islands. . ."
--"Why did you poison the water. . ."
--A Little Geography
--"Speaking frankly. . ."
--"And I am not at all a prophet. . ."
--Imitation from the Armenian
--". . . I know I can't move from this place. . ."
--"To the New Year! To new bitterness!"
--To the Memory of M.B.
--"I put my curly-haired son to bed. . ."
--Stanzas
--Belated Reply
--"And here, in defiance of the fact. . ."
--"The neighbor, out of pity. . ."
--"And all those whom my heart won't forget. . ."
--"What I am doing, everyone is capable of doing. . ."
--"Such a thunderstorm. . ."
1941-May 1945
--"To live --- as if in freedom. . ."
Leningrad Quatrains:
--1. "The enemy banner. . ."
--2. "Dig, my shovel. . ."
--3. "Even though the signal fire is not burning. . ."
--"And of everything earthly there remained. . ."
--"This is how I am. . ."
--"It's amusing for you, under the floorboards. . ."
--"If you are death. . ."
--Typhus
--"My eyes don't move from the horizon. . ."
--"Leningrad blue eyes. . ."
--"We will go to Samarkand to die. . ."
--"When out of habit I say. . ."
--"And the double in the mirror conceals. . ."
--Inscription on the Poem 'Triptych'
--Postscript to 'The Leningrad Cycle'
--(Another Postscript to the 'Leningrad Cycle')
--Death
--"De profundis. . . My generation tasted little honey. . ."
--"You, Asia --- motherland of motherlands!"
--Palmyra
--"Can it be I'm no longer the one. . ."
--"Our feelings then were so much alike. . ."
--". . . For the lily-of-the-valley month of May. . ."
--"Our boys, they defended us. . ."
--Lamentation
--"If, when I flew, overtaking the sun. . ."
--"Because of the strange lyrics. . ."
--Additions to the Cycle 'Victory'
--"There's a silhouette of Faust in the distance. . ."
--"There's something wrong with me again. . ."
--"The one people once called. . ."
September 1945-1956
--"I wouldn't have known how the quince tree blossoms. . ."
--"Let a wave of music crash. . ."
--"And the sly crescent moon. . ."
--"At great expense and unexpectedly. . ."
--"I bid farewell to everyone. . ."
--"With the rabble in a ditch. . ."
--Lullaby
--The Glass Doorbell
--"Everyone left and no one returned. . ."
--Shards
--"I don't have special claims. . ."
--Festive Song
--"Ah, for you Russian is not enough. . ."
--"Regarding myself as a mere echo. . ."
--From the Cycle 'Secrets of the Craft'
--From the Cycle 'Burnt Notebook'
--"Others go off with their loved ones. . ."
--Prologue
--"Even that voice will not deceive me. . ."
--"I am drawn to the roads around Moscow. . ."
1957-1966
--"They will forget? --- How astonishing!"
--"In vain you fling at my feet. . ."
--August
--"It's no wonder that sometimes my unruly verse. . ."
--"At least today give me a call. . ."
--"Chopin's Polonaise is passing once more. . ."
--"Away from me, as from that countess. . ."
--"All the unburied ones --- I buried them. . ."
--"To bequeath to some wild violin. . ."
--"And you will be one of those old women. . ."
--"And everyone followed me, my readers. . ."
--Inscription on a Book
--"Don't disturb my life. . ."
--"This is neither old nor new. . ."
--Speed
--"But I didn't give you the ring. . ."
--"I threw thousands of bell-towers. . ."
--"It's not that I am searching for you. . ."
--"I was captivated by mistake. . ."
--Ravings
--Four Seasons of the Year
--"For a long time I haven't believed in telephones. . ."
--Creation
--March Elegies
--The Heiress
--"You are to live, but I, not very much longer. . ."
--"And it is impossible to take from them. . ."
--"And the mad face of black music. . ."
--"What is separation to us? --- A jaunty game. . ."
--"These praises for me are not due to rank. . ."
--From the Sketches
--"Somebody's voice can be heard by the porch. . ."
--"What? Only ten years, you're joking, my Lord!"
--"You were the first to yield. . ."
--"And she could have done this. . ."
--"Like someone mute and blind and deaf. . ."
--To the Memory of Anta
--"No more joking. . ."
--"And he lures me with youth, and promises fame. . ."
--The Pines
--"And the flock of pansies. . ."
--"Under the cherished maple. . ."
--"No, we didn't suffer together in vain. . ."
--"Sickness has kept me languishing. . ."
--Listening to Singing
--"Prayerful days in the hospital. . ."
--"You were right not to take me along. . ."
--"You won't have to answer for me. . ."
--Imitation of the Korean
--Almost into the Album
--The Publication of a Book
--"And the northern news. . ."
--More about This Summer
--"What do we have in common?"
--"Perhaps afterwards you hated me. . ."
--"Everyone, even the uninvited. . ."
--"How forgetful life is, and death. . ."
--Sonnet
--Midnight Verses
--"An unforeseen evil befell. . ."
--"And it was so good this summer. . ."
--"From the burial mound's deadly vault. . ."
--"Abused, praised. . ."
--The Fifth Rose
--"You --- in fact, are somebody's husband. . ."
--"Everything in Moscow is steeped in verses. . ."
--"Leave me alone with music. . ."
--"I'm playing the very game. . ."
--". . . and to die in haughty consciousness. . ."
--Forbidden Rose
--"Grand Confession"
--"I'm walking again in the thickets of night. . ."
--The North
--Romance
--Christmastime (December 24)
--From the Diary of a Traveller
--From the Italian Diary
--"But who would have thought that Sixty-Four. . ."
--"The violent wine of lechery. . ."
--To Music
--"And as music began to sound. . ."
--"We learned not to meet anymore. . ."
--"I am going where nothing is needed. . ."
--"Only life is forgetful. . ."
--"The aria Zibelia is still suffering there. . ."
--"Who sent him here. . ."
--"It's not being with you that comforts me. . ."
--"Torment proved to be my muse. . ."
--"And your dome was not touched with the gold. . ."
--"And the harsh sounds became damp. . ."
--"Off in the distance hung some sort of bridge. . ."
--"So we lowered our eyes. . ."
--"And you will love me all your life. . ."
--Fragment
--"Let the Australian sit down, invisible. . ."
--Sonnet
--"And my sonnet arises. . ."
--"Ice is growing on the windowpanes. . ."
--"I am still at home today. . ."
--Little Song
--"Strain both your voice and hearing. . ."
--"I lift the receiver --- I say my name. . ."
--"She replaced the receiver. . ."
--"And I go about my own house. . ."
--"No, not chess, not tennis. . ."
--"It is terrifying to be praised by you. . ."
--"And a strange companion was sent to me by hell. . ."
--"I don't know what was guiding me. . ."
--"There's no way for me to take flight. . ."
--"You loved me and pitied me. . ."
--"Stop it, I was like all of them. . ."
--"And I have no claims. . ."
--"Sooner than anything, love turns to mortal ashes. . ."
--". . . that rhymes with blood. . ."
--To the Defenders of Stalin
--"They swore by the Hammer and Sickle. . ."
--"Not to a secret pavilion. . ."
--"In sorrows, in passions. . ."
--"Oh, how your grandfathers loved me. . ."
--"The poet is not a person. . ."
--"Don't lie to me, don't lie to me. . ."
--"Soon I will leave you. . ."
--"What is lurking in the mirror? Grief. . ."
--"You cranks, you could have chosen. . ."
--"By turning endings into beginnings. . ."
--"Not in vain did I bear. . ."
--"Waiting for him gives me more pleasure. . ."
--"The hostess is rosy cheeked. . ."
--To Music
--"Luring with the Pied Piper's flute. . ."
--"Speechlessness became my home. . ."
--Music
--Stravinsky's 'Jeremiah'
--"And in the depths of music. . ."
--"Don't give me anything to remember you by. . ."
--"Pray, at night, that you won't. . ."
--". . . But there is no power more formidable. . ."
--"Necessity herself has finally submitted. . ."
Notes to Poems
Notes to "Mirrors and Masks"
Appendix: "In Praise of Peace"
Index to Poems---By Source
Index of Titles & First Lines
Index of Proper Names
Select Bibliography
Biographical Notes
Translator's Acknowledgements
Publisher's Acknowledgements
Translator's Preface, by Judith Hemschemeyer
Mirrors and Masks: The Life and Poetic Works of Anna Akhmatova, by Roberta Reeder
Anna Akhmatova: A Memoir, by Isaiah Berlin
Chronology
Third Printing (Revised): New Poems and Revisions
Second Edition: New Poems and Revisions
Notes on the Text
Portfolio: Tsarskoye Selo
--Evening (1912)
(ADDITIONS)
--"I pray to the sunbeam from the window. . ."
Two Poems:
--1. "Both sides of the pillow. . ."
--2. "That same voice, that same gaze. . ."
Reading Hamlet:
--1. "Dust rose from the vacant lot. . ."
--2. "And as if by mistake. . ."
--"And when we had cursed each other. . ."
--First Return
--"I wept and repented. . ."
--"At the new moon he abandoned me. . ."
--"Moorka, don't go. . ."
Portfolio: Petersburg
--Rosary (1914)
(ADDITIONS)
--"I led my lover out to the hall. . ."
--"Can you forgive me these November days?"
--"I'm not asking for your love. . ."
--"'The palms of your hands are burning. . ."
--"You will live without misfortune. . ."
--White Flock (1917)
(ADDITIONS)
--"And it seems --- a human voice. . ."
--"When, in the gloomiest of capitals. . ."
--"How steep and resounding these bridges are. . ."
--"Why then did I used to hold you in my arms. . ."
--"I was born neither too early nor too late. . ."
--"I don't need much happiness. . ."
--"The city disappeared. . ."
--"Oh, there are unique words. . ."
--"I dream of him less often now, thank God. . ."
--"Not mystery and not grief. . ."
--"We will be together, darling, together. . ."
--"The dark road twisted. . ."
--"How I love, how I loved to look. . ."
--Plantain (1921)
(ADDITION)
--To Zara
--Anno Domini MCMXXI (1922)
Portfolio: Photo Biography
--Reed (1924-1940)
--Seventh Book (1936-1964)
--Odd Number
Epic and Dramatic Fragments and Long Poems
--From a Primeval Poem
Epic Motifs:
--I. "At that time I was a guest upon the earth. . ."
--II. "Having forsaken my homeland's sacred groves. . ."
--III. "Night came on and in the dark blue sky. . ."
--Fragment from. . . "The Russian Trianon"
--In Smolensk Cemetery
Northern Elegies:
--1. Prehistory
--2. "So here it is --- that autumn landscape. . ."
--3. "I, like a river. . ."
--4. "There are three ages to memories. . ."
--5. About the 1910's
--6. "It was dreadful to live in that house. . ."
--7. "And I have been silent, silent for thirty years. . ."
--Lyrical Digression on the Seventh Elegy
--At the Edge of the Sea
--The Way of All the Earth
from Prologue
--"Certainly no one in the world. . ."
--". . . I was the one forbidden book. . ."
--"Though you are three times more beautiful than angels. . ."
--"And you know, I agree to everything. . ."
--"Because I shared the primal darkness with you. . ."
--"However many tortures the other invented for me. . ."
--"This paradise, in which we did not sin. . ."
--"You frighten with caresses. . ."
--"Do not take yourself by the hand. . ."
--"Release me if just for a minute. . ."
--"The world never perceived such poverty. . ."
--"We tasted the forbidden knowledge. . ."
--POEM WITHOUT A HERO: A Triptych (1940-1962)
--Additions (Stanzas not included in the text of 'Poem Without a Hero', and poems relating to its composition)
Portfolio: The Artist's Muse
Uncollected Poems and Fragments
1904-1917
--"I plucked lilies, lovely and fragrant. . ."
--"I walked with you over the black abyss. . ."
--"Oh, hush! these strange, thrilling words. . ."
--"I know how to love. . ."
--Spring Air Imperiously Courageous
--"On his hands are lots of shining rings. . ."
--"My night --- feverish ravings about you. . ."
--From the First Notebook
--"Either I stayed with you. . ."
--"Your crazy eyes. . ."
--"They came and said: 'Your brother died.'"
--"For you, Aphrodite, I'll compose a dance. . ."
--"In my room lives a beautiful. . ."
--"On the little table, tea, rich pastries. . ."
--"I am fatal for those who are tender and young. . ."
--"For a long time I stood at Hell's heavy gates. . ."
--Solitude
--In the Forest
--The Old Portrait
--"The old oak rustles about the past. . ."
--"You are with me again. . ."
--"In the corner an old man resembling a ram. . ."
--"When we die it won't become darker. . ."
--"You've spent the whole day at the window. . ."
--"As if with a huge, heavy hammer. . ."
--"Come and take a look at me. . ."
--(To F.K. Sologub)
--"The corolla's needles catch fire. . ."
--"We will still add to this. . ."
--"In your fine hand you are writing Lise. . ."
--The Reply
--"I won't say anything, I won't open the door. . ."
--Latest Letter
--"I saw the field after the hail. . ."
--"And the fever at evening. . ."
--"Beyond the hazy pattern of the windowpanes. . ."
--"I'm not embarrassed by offensive remarks. . ."
--"And through everything and every moment. . ."
--"He smiled, standing on the threshold. . ."
--"Like someone who has left by the western gate. . ."
--From Old Verses
--"How long the New Year's holiday. . ."
--"Empty white Yuletide. . ."
--To Tamara Platonovna Karsavina
--"Some great misfortune happened to me here. . ."
--"Nowhere did I find my beloved. . ."
--"From you came uneasiness. . ."
--"You, the leader, standing by the spring. . ."
--". . . it is the one who gave me the zither. . ."
--"The bare, bleak days pass peacefully. . ."
--Last Will and Testament
--"The evening bell on the monastery wall. . ."
--"Flowers, cold from the dew. . ."
--"He did not kill, did not curse. . ."
--White Night
--"It's time to buy land. . ."
--"They are bearing someone's yellow coffin out. . ."
--"Because sin is what I glorified. . ."
--"In the interval between thunderstorms. . ."
--"I don't like flowers. . ."
--"And in the Kievian church of Divine Wisdom. . ."
--"On the right, the Dneiper. . ."
--Fragment
--"With the first sound falling from the piano. . ."
--"If the moon does not wander through the sky. . ."
--"Marvelous destiny named us. . ."
--". . . You can't make a soul mortal. . ."
--"You won't divine it immediately. . ."
--"In the city of the gatekeeper of paradise. . ."
--"In this church I heard the Canon. . ."
--"On the drawbridge. . ."
1919-1941
--"I am bitter and old. . ."
--"The tomtits sing well. . ."
--"Good fortune flew away from me. . ."
--"Isn't it strange that we knew him?"
--"A light beer has been brewed. . ."
--"That evening should be put to death. . ."
--"Hello, Piter. It's bad, old boy. . ."
--"The devil didn't betray me. . ."
--"How boring to have to defend. . ."
--"It has been seven years. . ."
--"I will not profane my lips with your name. . ."
--"Here the most beautiful girls fight. . ."
--"It would be so easy to abandon this life. . ."
--"And you will forgive me everything. . ."
--"Forgive me, that I manage badly. . ."
--To the Caucasus
--"And I will wander here at night. . ."
--"Ah! --- where are those islands. . ."
--"Why did you poison the water. . ."
--A Little Geography
--"Speaking frankly. . ."
--"And I am not at all a prophet. . ."
--Imitation from the Armenian
--". . . I know I can't move from this place. . ."
--"To the New Year! To new bitterness!"
--To the Memory of M.B.
--"I put my curly-haired son to bed. . ."
--Stanzas
--Belated Reply
--"And here, in defiance of the fact. . ."
--"The neighbor, out of pity. . ."
--"And all those whom my heart won't forget. . ."
--"What I am doing, everyone is capable of doing. . ."
--"Such a thunderstorm. . ."
1941-May 1945
--"To live --- as if in freedom. . ."
Leningrad Quatrains:
--1. "The enemy banner. . ."
--2. "Dig, my shovel. . ."
--3. "Even though the signal fire is not burning. . ."
--"And of everything earthly there remained. . ."
--"This is how I am. . ."
--"It's amusing for you, under the floorboards. . ."
--"If you are death. . ."
--Typhus
--"My eyes don't move from the horizon. . ."
--"Leningrad blue eyes. . ."
--"We will go to Samarkand to die. . ."
--"When out of habit I say. . ."
--"And the double in the mirror conceals. . ."
--Inscription on the Poem 'Triptych'
--Postscript to 'The Leningrad Cycle'
--(Another Postscript to the 'Leningrad Cycle')
--Death
--"De profundis. . . My generation tasted little honey. . ."
--"You, Asia --- motherland of motherlands!"
--Palmyra
--"Can it be I'm no longer the one. . ."
--"Our feelings then were so much alike. . ."
--". . . For the lily-of-the-valley month of May. . ."
--"Our boys, they defended us. . ."
--Lamentation
--"If, when I flew, overtaking the sun. . ."
--"Because of the strange lyrics. . ."
--Additions to the Cycle 'Victory'
--"There's a silhouette of Faust in the distance. . ."
--"There's something wrong with me again. . ."
--"The one people once called. . ."
September 1945-1956
--"I wouldn't have known how the quince tree blossoms. . ."
--"Let a wave of music crash. . ."
--"And the sly crescent moon. . ."
--"At great expense and unexpectedly. . ."
--"I bid farewell to everyone. . ."
--"With the rabble in a ditch. . ."
--Lullaby
--The Glass Doorbell
--"Everyone left and no one returned. . ."
--Shards
--"I don't have special claims. . ."
--Festive Song
--"Ah, for you Russian is not enough. . ."
--"Regarding myself as a mere echo. . ."
--From the Cycle 'Secrets of the Craft'
--From the Cycle 'Burnt Notebook'
--"Others go off with their loved ones. . ."
--Prologue
--"Even that voice will not deceive me. . ."
--"I am drawn to the roads around Moscow. . ."
1957-1966
--"They will forget? --- How astonishing!"
--"In vain you fling at my feet. . ."
--August
--"It's no wonder that sometimes my unruly verse. . ."
--"At least today give me a call. . ."
--"Chopin's Polonaise is passing once more. . ."
--"Away from me, as from that countess. . ."
--"All the unburied ones --- I buried them. . ."
--"To bequeath to some wild violin. . ."
--"And you will be one of those old women. . ."
--"And everyone followed me, my readers. . ."
--Inscription on a Book
--"Don't disturb my life. . ."
--"This is neither old nor new. . ."
--Speed
--"But I didn't give you the ring. . ."
--"I threw thousands of bell-towers. . ."
--"It's not that I am searching for you. . ."
--"I was captivated by mistake. . ."
--Ravings
--Four Seasons of the Year
--"For a long time I haven't believed in telephones. . ."
--Creation
--March Elegies
--The Heiress
--"You are to live, but I, not very much longer. . ."
--"And it is impossible to take from them. . ."
--"And the mad face of black music. . ."
--"What is separation to us? --- A jaunty game. . ."
--"These praises for me are not due to rank. . ."
--From the Sketches
--"Somebody's voice can be heard by the porch. . ."
--"What? Only ten years, you're joking, my Lord!"
--"You were the first to yield. . ."
--"And she could have done this. . ."
--"Like someone mute and blind and deaf. . ."
--To the Memory of Anta
--"No more joking. . ."
--"And he lures me with youth, and promises fame. . ."
--The Pines
--"And the flock of pansies. . ."
--"Under the cherished maple. . ."
--"No, we didn't suffer together in vain. . ."
--"Sickness has kept me languishing. . ."
--Listening to Singing
--"Prayerful days in the hospital. . ."
--"You were right not to take me along. . ."
--"You won't have to answer for me. . ."
--Imitation of the Korean
--Almost into the Album
--The Publication of a Book
--"And the northern news. . ."
--More about This Summer
--"What do we have in common?"
--"Perhaps afterwards you hated me. . ."
--"Everyone, even the uninvited. . ."
--"How forgetful life is, and death. . ."
--Sonnet
--Midnight Verses
--"An unforeseen evil befell. . ."
--"And it was so good this summer. . ."
--"From the burial mound's deadly vault. . ."
--"Abused, praised. . ."
--The Fifth Rose
--"You --- in fact, are somebody's husband. . ."
--"Everything in Moscow is steeped in verses. . ."
--"Leave me alone with music. . ."
--"I'm playing the very game. . ."
--". . . and to die in haughty consciousness. . ."
--Forbidden Rose
--"Grand Confession"
--"I'm walking again in the thickets of night. . ."
--The North
--Romance
--Christmastime (December 24)
--From the Diary of a Traveller
--From the Italian Diary
--"But who would have thought that Sixty-Four. . ."
--"The violent wine of lechery. . ."
--To Music
--"And as music began to sound. . ."
--"We learned not to meet anymore. . ."
--"I am going where nothing is needed. . ."
--"Only life is forgetful. . ."
--"The aria Zibelia is still suffering there. . ."
--"Who sent him here. . ."
--"It's not being with you that comforts me. . ."
--"Torment proved to be my muse. . ."
--"And your dome was not touched with the gold. . ."
--"And the harsh sounds became damp. . ."
--"Off in the distance hung some sort of bridge. . ."
--"So we lowered our eyes. . ."
--"And you will love me all your life. . ."
--Fragment
--"Let the Australian sit down, invisible. . ."
--Sonnet
--"And my sonnet arises. . ."
--"Ice is growing on the windowpanes. . ."
--"I am still at home today. . ."
--Little Song
--"Strain both your voice and hearing. . ."
--"I lift the receiver --- I say my name. . ."
--"She replaced the receiver. . ."
--"And I go about my own house. . ."
--"No, not chess, not tennis. . ."
--"It is terrifying to be praised by you. . ."
--"And a strange companion was sent to me by hell. . ."
--"I don't know what was guiding me. . ."
--"There's no way for me to take flight. . ."
--"You loved me and pitied me. . ."
--"Stop it, I was like all of them. . ."
--"And I have no claims. . ."
--"Sooner than anything, love turns to mortal ashes. . ."
--". . . that rhymes with blood. . ."
--To the Defenders of Stalin
--"They swore by the Hammer and Sickle. . ."
--"Not to a secret pavilion. . ."
--"In sorrows, in passions. . ."
--"Oh, how your grandfathers loved me. . ."
--"The poet is not a person. . ."
--"Don't lie to me, don't lie to me. . ."
--"Soon I will leave you. . ."
--"What is lurking in the mirror? Grief. . ."
--"You cranks, you could have chosen. . ."
--"By turning endings into beginnings. . ."
--"Not in vain did I bear. . ."
--"Waiting for him gives me more pleasure. . ."
--"The hostess is rosy cheeked. . ."
--To Music
--"Luring with the Pied Piper's flute. . ."
--"Speechlessness became my home. . ."
--Music
--Stravinsky's 'Jeremiah'
--"And in the depths of music. . ."
--"Don't give me anything to remember you by. . ."
--"Pray, at night, that you won't. . ."
--". . . But there is no power more formidable. . ."
--"Necessity herself has finally submitted. . ."
Notes to Poems
Notes to "Mirrors and Masks"
Appendix: "In Praise of Peace"
Index to Poems---By Source
Index of Titles & First Lines
Index of Proper Names
Select Bibliography
Biographical Notes
January 8, 2009
So much of translated poetry depends on the translator. Translating Akhmatova from Russian must be near impossible; the Russian language is structured so that, more or less, most words can rhyme with all the others by modifying the word endings... you can hear her tendancy for rhymed couplets if you ever listen to some of her poetry being read around in the original Russian. I partially chose Hemschemeyer because I wanted to read all of Akhmatova's poems. But the other part is because she chooses to use traditional poetic forms, though typically the lines do not rhyme in couplet form too often. There is a solemnity and a mystery to Hemschemeyer's translations, which are sparce and small and not too overdone, though I find her translation of "The Grey-eyed King" to be a little flat, compared to some of the ones I've read online. To talk about Akmhatova herself... what do you say about the Russian poet who changed the face of Russian poetry? It's so hard to know how to describe her poems when I can't read them in Russian yet. But even in English, her poems have a beauty and a lyricism, striking me with images both beautiful and terrible, that startle me and provoke me. She's my favorite poet, because she's subtle, and soft, painting a picture of a Russia that has vanished, while speaking of the universality of the human condition.
December 26, 2020
And I am not at all a prophet
My life is pure as a stream
I simply don’t feel like singing
to the sound of prison keys.
It was the morning of Christmas Eve when I finished this compendium. The quartets of Shostakovich were played. The music was a bit loud perhaps for a morning. I was safe and warm, my wife was here. We enjoyed the time together before she headed to work. I read her the above stanza. I confessed to a friend that I indeed felt haunted while reading this. My entire life Akhmatova has featured in the things I have read. She's always there, whether it be Shostakovich or Brodsky, lesser lights perhaps like Solomon Volkov, Bill Vollmann, or even Orlando Figes. I only read the selected poems recently. Thus this was an overdue evocation.
The introduction by Isiah Berlin is remarkable, especially the anecdote involving Randolph Churchill and the fears that Winston was going to fly Akhmatova out of the Evil Empire in the smoky aftermath of the Great Patriotic War. Poem Without A Hero struck me as the zenith. There is little structural support dividing the poems themselves, though there are hundreds of pages of end notes. There is also likely a hundred pages of photographs, an amount which appeared excessive at the time. Quibbles aside, this is collection is a remarkable feat of erudition. I highly recommend this.
My life is pure as a stream
I simply don’t feel like singing
to the sound of prison keys.
It was the morning of Christmas Eve when I finished this compendium. The quartets of Shostakovich were played. The music was a bit loud perhaps for a morning. I was safe and warm, my wife was here. We enjoyed the time together before she headed to work. I read her the above stanza. I confessed to a friend that I indeed felt haunted while reading this. My entire life Akhmatova has featured in the things I have read. She's always there, whether it be Shostakovich or Brodsky, lesser lights perhaps like Solomon Volkov, Bill Vollmann, or even Orlando Figes. I only read the selected poems recently. Thus this was an overdue evocation.
The introduction by Isiah Berlin is remarkable, especially the anecdote involving Randolph Churchill and the fears that Winston was going to fly Akhmatova out of the Evil Empire in the smoky aftermath of the Great Patriotic War. Poem Without A Hero struck me as the zenith. There is little structural support dividing the poems themselves, though there are hundreds of pages of end notes. There is also likely a hundred pages of photographs, an amount which appeared excessive at the time. Quibbles aside, this is collection is a remarkable feat of erudition. I highly recommend this.
March 11, 2009
Stunning, personally raw poetry from a pioneer of the "acme" school of Russian poetry. Was introduced to her when an 86 yo Russian emigre handed me a small worn copy of a volume of her works, in both English and Russian after we had begun an impromptu conversation about poetry. Put it in my hands, cupped his hands over mine and said "keep this, learn about her. I have no more need of it."
January 13, 2014
A great starting place if you’ve never read Anna Akhmatova would be Poems of Akhmatova, Selected, Translated and Introduced by Stanley Kunitz with Max Hayward. It’s career spanning but at only 173 pages, including presenting the poems in Russian with facing page English translations, it will convince you of her genius and invest you with an interest for a deeper engagement with her work and life. Then when you are ready, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova awaits. Published in an expanded edition in 1997, this is a monumental volume, 946 pages, including poems, preface and introduction, chronology, notes, photographs, bibliography and index. I read it poorly, over a number of years in fits and starts but it moved and impressed with every fit and start.
The Complete Poems, while no place to start, is essential to any library of 20th century poetry and a tremendous anthology for its comprehensiveness and organization. And it’s not just that there are so many more great poems than are fitted into the forty poem selected or that the great long poems “Requiem” and “Poem Without a Hero” are here in their entirety, along with several other excellent longer poems, but that even among the abandoned fragments and miscellaneous poems there are verses, lines, images that stop you in your readerly tracks. “I didn’t know that the moon / was in on everything.” Or: “Darkness will be light and sin lovely.” Or “The most reliable thing on earth is sorrow.” Or: “How short became the road / That seemed the longest.” And: “I’m walking again in the thickets of night, / There the vagabond nightingale sings, / Sweeter than honey, sweeter than wild strawberries / Even sweeter than my jealousy.”
Akhmatova had a difficult life, coming of age and launching her career as the Revolution brought a betrayed freedom that claimed lives in civil war and long decades of hideous repression. Stalin took her livelihood, killed her ex-husband, imprisoned her son, numerous friends, and a lover or two. She remained dedicated to her art and to her homeland and wrote brilliantly, passionately, and tragically about it in the poems that fill this great collection. I believe I will read each of the whole collections published in her lifetime and gathered here—Evening, Rosary, White Flock, Plantain, Anno Domini MCMXXI, Reed, and Seventh Book—over the next seven weekends. And then sometime down the summer road will read Poem Without a Hero again. So I will keep this collection in reach.
The Complete Poems, while no place to start, is essential to any library of 20th century poetry and a tremendous anthology for its comprehensiveness and organization. And it’s not just that there are so many more great poems than are fitted into the forty poem selected or that the great long poems “Requiem” and “Poem Without a Hero” are here in their entirety, along with several other excellent longer poems, but that even among the abandoned fragments and miscellaneous poems there are verses, lines, images that stop you in your readerly tracks. “I didn’t know that the moon / was in on everything.” Or: “Darkness will be light and sin lovely.” Or “The most reliable thing on earth is sorrow.” Or: “How short became the road / That seemed the longest.” And: “I’m walking again in the thickets of night, / There the vagabond nightingale sings, / Sweeter than honey, sweeter than wild strawberries / Even sweeter than my jealousy.”
Akhmatova had a difficult life, coming of age and launching her career as the Revolution brought a betrayed freedom that claimed lives in civil war and long decades of hideous repression. Stalin took her livelihood, killed her ex-husband, imprisoned her son, numerous friends, and a lover or two. She remained dedicated to her art and to her homeland and wrote brilliantly, passionately, and tragically about it in the poems that fill this great collection. I believe I will read each of the whole collections published in her lifetime and gathered here—Evening, Rosary, White Flock, Plantain, Anno Domini MCMXXI, Reed, and Seventh Book—over the next seven weekends. And then sometime down the summer road will read Poem Without a Hero again. So I will keep this collection in reach.
June 25, 2007
I only gave this 3 stars because I am not thrilled with the translation. Her poetry is brilliant and gets 5 stars - just try to find a better translation.
December 2, 2021
Seasonal reads delight me to no end, and this season between the glory of autumn and the hush of winter can be hard to fill with literature. Anna Akhmatova writes of "Three Autumns:" the first, "a festive chaos/Spiting yesterday's summer." The second, "impassive, like conscience," with "remote marches played on golden horns" that "float in the fragrant fog." The third, "not a third autumn, but death." Where I live, we are deep into the second autumn. While winter has never seemed like death to me, for Akhmatova in the Soviet Union, death was ever-present, and it stalks her poetry.
There are many, many short poems here, quite a few fragments, some longer poems. When possible, a date and location are given for each (many lack titles). A lot of these are about unrequited or disappointed love, which isn't my jam, but I loved the depth of them all the same. Her oblique poems about life in the Soviet Union are the ones that will stick with me, and "Three Autumns" is probably my favorite. In all, these make excellent Advent reading, with a general sense of waiting in the dark, and recurring themes of light and dark in the lines.
I rarely reach for poetry in translation, because how can poetry be translated from one language to another? However, Judith Hemschemeyer has translated these poems excellently. Some of them have that "ring" of being written in English, which is a huge accomplishment for any translator, especially from a language as different from English as Russian. Hats off to her immense work in collecting and translating Akhmatova's corpus here. This volume also contains some supplementary materials and a large cache of photographs, edited by Roberta Reeder.
From MCMXXI
Everything has been plundered, betrayed, sold out,
The wing of black death has flashed,
Everything has been devoured by starving anguish,
Why, then, is it so bright?
The fantastic woods near the town
Wafts the scent of cherry blossoms by day,
At night new constellations shine
In the transparent depths of the skies of July--
And how near the miraculous draws
To the dirty, tumbledown huts . . .
No one, no one knows what it is,
But for centuries we have longed for it.
June 1921
-----
Our holy trade
Has existed for a thousand years . . .
With it even a world without light would be bright.
But not one poet has ever yet said
That there is no wisdom and no old age,
And that possibly there is no death.
June 25, 1944
Leningrad
There are many, many short poems here, quite a few fragments, some longer poems. When possible, a date and location are given for each (many lack titles). A lot of these are about unrequited or disappointed love, which isn't my jam, but I loved the depth of them all the same. Her oblique poems about life in the Soviet Union are the ones that will stick with me, and "Three Autumns" is probably my favorite. In all, these make excellent Advent reading, with a general sense of waiting in the dark, and recurring themes of light and dark in the lines.
I rarely reach for poetry in translation, because how can poetry be translated from one language to another? However, Judith Hemschemeyer has translated these poems excellently. Some of them have that "ring" of being written in English, which is a huge accomplishment for any translator, especially from a language as different from English as Russian. Hats off to her immense work in collecting and translating Akhmatova's corpus here. This volume also contains some supplementary materials and a large cache of photographs, edited by Roberta Reeder.
From MCMXXI
Everything has been plundered, betrayed, sold out,
The wing of black death has flashed,
Everything has been devoured by starving anguish,
Why, then, is it so bright?
The fantastic woods near the town
Wafts the scent of cherry blossoms by day,
At night new constellations shine
In the transparent depths of the skies of July--
And how near the miraculous draws
To the dirty, tumbledown huts . . .
No one, no one knows what it is,
But for centuries we have longed for it.
June 1921
-----
Our holy trade
Has existed for a thousand years . . .
With it even a world without light would be bright.
But not one poet has ever yet said
That there is no wisdom and no old age,
And that possibly there is no death.
June 25, 1944
Leningrad
January 2, 2012
Wow. This complete book of poems of Akhmatova was a mind-blower. Would have like bilingual, but it would have had to be in two monstrous volumes. Akhmatova was brilliant at the start and got even moreso as her life went on--and is simply a testimony to how a poem can condense an enormous experience into just a few lines. Poem Without a Hero, Northern Elegies and Requiem came late in her writing life, pure tragedy, like a cello, or someone playing a piano in a huge empty hall. The more I read about her, the more the poems unlock their secrets.
February 22, 2012
It's a long collection. There's a lot of poems. But you're not in a Soviet gulag or under the surveillance of the KGB. So stop complaining. Relax. You'll get through it. And it's worth it. "Can you write about this? Yes, I can." - Anna Akhmatova
July 27, 2009
Don't have anything terribly profound to say about Akhmatova. Overall, the collection here merits three stars. I find that I prefer her earlier stuff, pre-Revolution and from the early '20s (before Stalin solidified his control), but there are some very affecting stuff from the period when her son was in a gulag (I'm thinking here, though I can't remember the specific poem, of the image of the women waiting in line to hear news of their husbands, lovers, sons, etc.).
Some of the more memorable verses (for me):
Now, like a little snake it curls into a ball,
Bewitching your heart,
Then for days it will coo like a dove
On the little white windowsill.
Or it will flash as bright frost,
Drowse like a gillyflower...
But surely and stealthily it will lead you away
From joy and from tranquility.
It knows how to sob so sweetly
In the prayer of a yearning violin,
And how fearful to divine it
In a still unfamiliar smile. p. 81
There is a sacred boundary between those who are close,
And it cannot be crossed by passion or love -
Though lips fuse in dreadful silence
And the heart shatters to pieces with love.
Friendship is helpless here, and years
Of exalted and ardent happiness,
When the soul is free and a stranger
To the slow languor of voluptuousness.
Those who strive to reach it are mad, and those
Who reach it - stricken by grief...
Now you understand why my heart
Does not beat faster under your hand. p. 181
...
Damned if I will. Neither by glance nor by groan
Will I touch your cursed soul,
But I vow to you by the garden of angels,
By the miraculous icon I vow
And by the fiery passion of our nights -
I will never return to you. p. 285
That was when the ones who smiled
Were the dead, glad to be at rest.... p. 386
A sky white with a frightful whiteness,
And the earth like coal and granite.
Under this withered moon
Nothing shines anymore.
A woman's voice, hoarse and impassioned,
Doesn't sing, but yells, yells.
On the black poplar right above me
Not a single leaf rustles.
Was this why I kissed you?
Was this why I tormented myself, loving?
To remember you now, calmly and wearily,
With loathing? p. 643
O God, for myself I could forgive everything,
But I would rather be a hawk clawing a lamb,
Or a serpent biting someone sleeping in the field,
Than be a human and be forced to see
What people do, and from putrid shame,
Not dare to raise my eyes to the heavens on high. p. 647
Some of the more memorable verses (for me):
Now, like a little snake it curls into a ball,
Bewitching your heart,
Then for days it will coo like a dove
On the little white windowsill.
Or it will flash as bright frost,
Drowse like a gillyflower...
But surely and stealthily it will lead you away
From joy and from tranquility.
It knows how to sob so sweetly
In the prayer of a yearning violin,
And how fearful to divine it
In a still unfamiliar smile. p. 81
There is a sacred boundary between those who are close,
And it cannot be crossed by passion or love -
Though lips fuse in dreadful silence
And the heart shatters to pieces with love.
Friendship is helpless here, and years
Of exalted and ardent happiness,
When the soul is free and a stranger
To the slow languor of voluptuousness.
Those who strive to reach it are mad, and those
Who reach it - stricken by grief...
Now you understand why my heart
Does not beat faster under your hand. p. 181
...
Damned if I will. Neither by glance nor by groan
Will I touch your cursed soul,
But I vow to you by the garden of angels,
By the miraculous icon I vow
And by the fiery passion of our nights -
I will never return to you. p. 285
That was when the ones who smiled
Were the dead, glad to be at rest.... p. 386
A sky white with a frightful whiteness,
And the earth like coal and granite.
Under this withered moon
Nothing shines anymore.
A woman's voice, hoarse and impassioned,
Doesn't sing, but yells, yells.
On the black poplar right above me
Not a single leaf rustles.
Was this why I kissed you?
Was this why I tormented myself, loving?
To remember you now, calmly and wearily,
With loathing? p. 643
O God, for myself I could forgive everything,
But I would rather be a hawk clawing a lamb,
Or a serpent biting someone sleeping in the field,
Than be a human and be forced to see
What people do, and from putrid shame,
Not dare to raise my eyes to the heavens on high. p. 647
April 13, 2011
Since I was required to read one of Akmatova’s works in my World Literature course I found myself enthralled with her poetry. After finding myself searching through book stores for different translations, I fell in love with Judith Hemschemeyer’s most recent translation of her work. Within Akhmatova’s poetry, throughout each and every one of the translations, I see a woman full of emotions and tragedy. Her poems speak volumes as we see the inner workings of her mind while dealing with loss and adaptation to her circumstances. Much of her works seems to focus more on emotion then imagery, metaphor or symbolism rather then sensory. Hemschemeyer’s translation, I feel, brought out the true poetry in her words as Hemschemeyer not only translated it and oriented it to her era, but also created work that flowed, almost magically, from sentence to sentence, poem to poem. My soul focus right now is poetry and since reading Akhmatova’s works I find myself striving to create the emotional appeal which she was able to create for me.
May 11, 2012
Akhmatova's poetry has a moral compass and integrity that feels almost lost. Whose words, which poet's, today would you memorize in order to preserve?! In a way, the writing of extremity forces us to read in extremity.
A haunting story: Before Mandelstam was taken away by the secret police, Akhmatova offered him an egg (her entire dinner) to eat.
A haunting story: Before Mandelstam was taken away by the secret police, Akhmatova offered him an egg (her entire dinner) to eat.
August 11, 2016
Her poetry is breathtaking.
July 25, 2014
Anna Akhmatova's first husband was murdered by Lenin's secret police the Cheka. Her next husband and her son were both sent to the Gulag by Stalin. Most people would have a complete breakdown after enduring such tragedy. Akhmatova, much like fellow poet Paul Celan, turned that unbelievable suffering into some of the greatest poetry of the 20th century. Few have ever captured the suffering of their native people the way Akhmatova did. Her most famous poem and quite possibly my favorite is "Requiem"
Interesting tidbit: She was a proven descendent of Genghis Khan and had a Mongol grandmother from whom she took her pen name.
Interesting tidbit: She was a proven descendent of Genghis Khan and had a Mongol grandmother from whom she took her pen name.
May 6, 2010
I inherited this book from my late wife, Keena, who studied Russian. Though I have never studied either the Russian language nor its literature, when I discovered this book among Keena's things I started reading it on the spot, and was immediately taken by it. Akhmatova was truly a great poet. Many thanks to my wife for posthumously introducing me to her work.
August 18, 2008
Okay, I only made it through about half of this, maybe a little more. It's a broswing book I'll learn my way into, I hope. When she's good, it's astonishing, when it's not. . .it's not. I think I expected more knock-my-sox-off work than I actually found, hence the somewhat muted rating.
January 30, 2025
I read the 1st edition (1990). Vol. 1: A young woman’s emotional life. Vol. 2: Persecution, sorrow, war, resilience.
January 12, 2024
Simply, the best.
March 6, 2019
With possibly over 1000 poems, it's hard to say I actually finished this absolute door-stopper of a book, but I certainly read a lot of them! The book also contains lots of B/W photos of Akhmatova's life, the people she knew, the places she lived, which is a nice feature.
Ackhmatova lived thro some of Russia's most historically significant moments (WW1, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Leninist and Stalinist purges, the siege of Leningrad) and her grief, pain, fear and love of people and country during these years comes through starkly. The poems she wrote while her son Lev was imprisoned by the regime are gut-wrenching!
"Seventeen months I've pleaded
for you to come home.
Flung myself at the hangman’s feet.
My terror, oh my son.
And I can’t understand.
Now all’s eternal confusion.
Who’s beast, and who’s man?
How long till execution?"
Despite being criticised and condemned by the Stalinist authorities, which meant she couldn't publish and lived in real poverty, she never left Russia. Choosing instead to continue writing and earning a pittance as a translator, while trying to keep her son alive during his imprisonment with food and care packages. It wasn't until the 1960s that she was "rehabilitated" and finally allowed the reputation she so richly deserved in her home country.
Ackhmatova lived thro some of Russia's most historically significant moments (WW1, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Leninist and Stalinist purges, the siege of Leningrad) and her grief, pain, fear and love of people and country during these years comes through starkly. The poems she wrote while her son Lev was imprisoned by the regime are gut-wrenching!
"Seventeen months I've pleaded
for you to come home.
Flung myself at the hangman’s feet.
My terror, oh my son.
And I can’t understand.
Now all’s eternal confusion.
Who’s beast, and who’s man?
How long till execution?"
Despite being criticised and condemned by the Stalinist authorities, which meant she couldn't publish and lived in real poverty, she never left Russia. Choosing instead to continue writing and earning a pittance as a translator, while trying to keep her son alive during his imprisonment with food and care packages. It wasn't until the 1960s that she was "rehabilitated" and finally allowed the reputation she so richly deserved in her home country.
June 27, 2021
“ I asked: ‘What do you wish?’
He said: ‘To be with you in hell’ “
hot asf
He said: ‘To be with you in hell’ “
hot asf
January 18, 2021
Felt sulky and decided to reread her works from start to finish. Cried along with her sad love poems then felt pathetic for having stupid girl problems when we hit Requiem era Akhmatova. This woman :-")
Want to read
December 31, 2023me when i need to slaughter memory, turn my living soul to stone, then teach myself to live again
March 10, 2024
I don't remember who first recommended Akhmatova to me as a poet to read, but the library only had her complete works (900+ pages of Russian poetry), so my desire to check her work out turned into an all-or-nothing sort of endeavor. Because of the length of the collection and the looming due date, I wasn't able to slowly work through her poems the way I wanted to. Instead, it was more like guzzling from a fire hose. It's not a cheerful collection, which is perhaps to be expected, given that Akhmatova was a Russian who lived through the first half of the 20th century.
In some ways, it was really interesting to fly through them so quickly, because I was able to get more of a birds-eye view and see certain trends. Her first poems felt young--mostly melancholy, focusing on unrequited love and death, but in that idealized, self-indulgent way that so often typifies poetry written by younger authors. As she got older, religious symbolism and Biblical references began to increase. And then, as Russia became engulfed in the horrors of revolution, we see it reflected in her poems--subtly at first, and then overtly, with pages and pages full of blood and death. Towards the end, sprinkled in there are poems on poetry and the craft of writing.
Akhmatova hasn't earned a place on my Favorite Poets list, but I wouldn't mind a re-read sometime, especially if I could take more time.
Update, 3/10/24:
This time wasn't the slow trip through Akhmatova's poetry that I had been hoping for. It was just a quick flipping through (is there such a thing when the book is 900 pages?) to try to find my favorites for a book club meeting. But I was re-inspired to try to find a copy of Akhmatova's poetry for my own shelves.
In some ways, it was really interesting to fly through them so quickly, because I was able to get more of a birds-eye view and see certain trends. Her first poems felt young--mostly melancholy, focusing on unrequited love and death, but in that idealized, self-indulgent way that so often typifies poetry written by younger authors. As she got older, religious symbolism and Biblical references began to increase. And then, as Russia became engulfed in the horrors of revolution, we see it reflected in her poems--subtly at first, and then overtly, with pages and pages full of blood and death. Towards the end, sprinkled in there are poems on poetry and the craft of writing.
Akhmatova hasn't earned a place on my Favorite Poets list, but I wouldn't mind a re-read sometime, especially if I could take more time.
Update, 3/10/24:
This time wasn't the slow trip through Akhmatova's poetry that I had been hoping for. It was just a quick flipping through (is there such a thing when the book is 900 pages?) to try to find my favorites for a book club meeting. But I was re-inspired to try to find a copy of Akhmatova's poetry for my own shelves.
November 9, 2021
I don’t think these poems work so well in translation, yet I’m a Silver Age Stray Dog man at heart, and worship Akhmatova anyhow. But as they say in The Big Short: Truth is like poetry. And no one likes poetry.
April 23, 2009
What a woman! What a mother! Man, I'm so glad I wasn't born Russian!
August 24, 2016
Another mammoth undertaking and I'm hardly worthy of reviewing it (is anyone?), but well worth the slog if you can hang with Akhmatova.
August 5, 2019
One of my favorite poets, one of my favorite books
September 6, 2025
i tried to narrow these down more but couldn't:
—
only the nights are terrible because / in my dreams i see your eyes
(1912)
—
i'm not embarrassed by offensive remarks / i don't blame anyone for anything / just don't give me a shameful ending / to my shameful life
(1910s)
—
as the shadow from the body wants to part / as the flesh from the soul wants to separate / so i want now — to be forgotten
(1922)
—
here the most beautiful girls fight / for the honor of marrying executioners / here they torture the righteous at night / and wear down the untamable with hunger
(1924)
—
to me, praise from others is — ashes / from you even a reproach is — high praise
(1931)
—
wild honey smells like freedom / dust—like a ray of sun / like violets—a young maid's mouth / and gold—like nothing / the flowers of the mignonette smell like water / and like an apple—love / but we learned once and for all / that blood smells only like blood . . .
(1933)
—
and of everything earthly there remained / only your daily bread / a fellow man's kind word / and the pure voice of the field
(1941)
—
we will go to samarkand to die / to the home of everlasting roses. . .
(1943)
—
this black and everlasting separation / i bear equally with you / why are you crying? rather give me your hand / promise to visit my dreams again / you and i are like two mountains . . . / you and i will not meet in this world / if only at the midnight hour / you'd send me a greeting across the stars
(1946)
—
already i knew the list of crimes / that i was destined to commit
(1955)
—
we met in an unbelievable year, / when the world's strength was at an ebb, / everything was in mourning, everything withered by adversity, / and only the graves were fresh. / without streetlights, the neva's waves were black as pitch, / thick night enclosed me like a wall . . . / that's when my voice called out to you! / why it did — i still don't understand. / and you came to me, as if guided by a star / that tragic autumn, stepping / into that irrevocably ruined house, / from whence had flown a flock of burnt verse.
(1956)
—
"farewell song" / i didn't laugh and didn't sing, / i kept silent all day, / and above all i wanted to be with you / from the very beginning: / the delicious delirium / of the first lighthearted spat, / and the silent, stale, hasty / last repast.
(1959)
—
no, not under the vault of alien skies / and not under the shelter of alien wings — / i was with my people then / there, where my people, unfortunately, were
(1961)
—
you will hear thunder and remember me, / and think: she wanted storms. the rim / of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, / and your heart, as it was then, will be on fire. / that day in moscow, it will all come true, / when, for the last time, i take my leave, / and hasten to the heights that I have longed for, / leaving my shadow still to be with you
(1961)
—
perhaps somewhere we will live together / wander through a gentle meadow / here we can't even consider / dreaming of one another
(1962)
—
abused, praised / your voice is wild and simple / you—are untranslatable / into any tongue / you will pass into oblivion / like people entering a temple / i bless / you for this
(1963)
—
i am responsible / for hundreds of crimes / to the living i was a traitor / and faithful—only to shades
(1963)
—
so we lowered our eyes / tossing the flowers on the bed / we didn't know until the end / what to call one another / we didn't dare until the end / to utter first names / as if, nearing the goal, we slowed our steps / on the enchanted way
(1965)
—
no, not chess, not tennis. . . / what i am playing with you / has a different name / if it has to be named. . . / neither meeting nor separation / neither silence nor conversation. . . / and because of this / your blood chills a bit
(1965)
—
in the face of your agonizing death, / they swore by the hammer and sickle: / 'we pay in gold for betrayal, / for songs we pay in lead'
(1960s)
—
waiting for him gives me more pleasure / than feasting with another
(1960s)
—
the inscription on this last one is "in memory of our tashkent":
i wouldn't have known how the quince tree blossoms
i wouldn't have known how the words sound
in your tongue,
how the fog crawls down the mountain to the city,
and that a caravan is crossing
dusty beshagach
like the wind, like a stream, like a ray. . .
*
and the city is ancient, like the earth,
beaten out of pure clay
and surrounded by boundless fields,
floods of tulips.
*
now i thank everyone,
rakhmat and khaier i say,
waving my scarf.
rakhmat, aibek, rakhmat, chusti,
rakhmat toshkent! good-bye, good-bye,
my quiet, ancient home.
rakhmat also to the flowers and to the stars,
and to the little baranchuks
in the youthful arms
of mothers with black braids. . .
i was 800 magical days
under your deep blue cup,
lapis lazuli cup
i breathed you, garden aflame. . .
(1945)
—
only the nights are terrible because / in my dreams i see your eyes
(1912)
—
i'm not embarrassed by offensive remarks / i don't blame anyone for anything / just don't give me a shameful ending / to my shameful life
(1910s)
—
as the shadow from the body wants to part / as the flesh from the soul wants to separate / so i want now — to be forgotten
(1922)
—
here the most beautiful girls fight / for the honor of marrying executioners / here they torture the righteous at night / and wear down the untamable with hunger
(1924)
—
to me, praise from others is — ashes / from you even a reproach is — high praise
(1931)
—
wild honey smells like freedom / dust—like a ray of sun / like violets—a young maid's mouth / and gold—like nothing / the flowers of the mignonette smell like water / and like an apple—love / but we learned once and for all / that blood smells only like blood . . .
(1933)
—
and of everything earthly there remained / only your daily bread / a fellow man's kind word / and the pure voice of the field
(1941)
—
we will go to samarkand to die / to the home of everlasting roses. . .
(1943)
—
this black and everlasting separation / i bear equally with you / why are you crying? rather give me your hand / promise to visit my dreams again / you and i are like two mountains . . . / you and i will not meet in this world / if only at the midnight hour / you'd send me a greeting across the stars
(1946)
—
already i knew the list of crimes / that i was destined to commit
(1955)
—
we met in an unbelievable year, / when the world's strength was at an ebb, / everything was in mourning, everything withered by adversity, / and only the graves were fresh. / without streetlights, the neva's waves were black as pitch, / thick night enclosed me like a wall . . . / that's when my voice called out to you! / why it did — i still don't understand. / and you came to me, as if guided by a star / that tragic autumn, stepping / into that irrevocably ruined house, / from whence had flown a flock of burnt verse.
(1956)
—
"farewell song" / i didn't laugh and didn't sing, / i kept silent all day, / and above all i wanted to be with you / from the very beginning: / the delicious delirium / of the first lighthearted spat, / and the silent, stale, hasty / last repast.
(1959)
—
no, not under the vault of alien skies / and not under the shelter of alien wings — / i was with my people then / there, where my people, unfortunately, were
(1961)
—
you will hear thunder and remember me, / and think: she wanted storms. the rim / of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, / and your heart, as it was then, will be on fire. / that day in moscow, it will all come true, / when, for the last time, i take my leave, / and hasten to the heights that I have longed for, / leaving my shadow still to be with you
(1961)
—
perhaps somewhere we will live together / wander through a gentle meadow / here we can't even consider / dreaming of one another
(1962)
—
abused, praised / your voice is wild and simple / you—are untranslatable / into any tongue / you will pass into oblivion / like people entering a temple / i bless / you for this
(1963)
—
i am responsible / for hundreds of crimes / to the living i was a traitor / and faithful—only to shades
(1963)
—
so we lowered our eyes / tossing the flowers on the bed / we didn't know until the end / what to call one another / we didn't dare until the end / to utter first names / as if, nearing the goal, we slowed our steps / on the enchanted way
(1965)
—
no, not chess, not tennis. . . / what i am playing with you / has a different name / if it has to be named. . . / neither meeting nor separation / neither silence nor conversation. . . / and because of this / your blood chills a bit
(1965)
—
in the face of your agonizing death, / they swore by the hammer and sickle: / 'we pay in gold for betrayal, / for songs we pay in lead'
(1960s)
—
waiting for him gives me more pleasure / than feasting with another
(1960s)
—
the inscription on this last one is "in memory of our tashkent":
i wouldn't have known how the quince tree blossoms
i wouldn't have known how the words sound
in your tongue,
how the fog crawls down the mountain to the city,
and that a caravan is crossing
dusty beshagach
like the wind, like a stream, like a ray. . .
*
and the city is ancient, like the earth,
beaten out of pure clay
and surrounded by boundless fields,
floods of tulips.
*
now i thank everyone,
rakhmat and khaier i say,
waving my scarf.
rakhmat, aibek, rakhmat, chusti,
rakhmat toshkent! good-bye, good-bye,
my quiet, ancient home.
rakhmat also to the flowers and to the stars,
and to the little baranchuks
in the youthful arms
of mothers with black braids. . .
i was 800 magical days
under your deep blue cup,
lapis lazuli cup
i breathed you, garden aflame. . .
(1945)
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