Selected Poems by Anna Akhmatova (PDF)

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A selection by Russia’s greatest modern poet (1889-1966).

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I received the lovely Folio Society edition of the Selected Poems of Anna Akhmatova as a gift and was moved deeply. It was the first reading I had done of the works of this Russian poet. This edition has a history that is worth mentioning. In 1985, Ohio University Press published the Selected Poems with translations by D.M. Thomas under the title “You Will Hear Thunder.” Vintage republished the book in 2009, and it remains available in an inexpensive paperback. The Folio Society published its edition in 2016. It consists of the Thomas translation and notes on the poems together with a new introduction by Elimear McBride. The book comes in a slipcase, is a joy to read and hold, and includes seven illustrations and photographs. It is expensive but a wonderful book to own and to receive as a gift.The book includes a selection of Akhmatova’s (1889 — 1966) poetry from 1909 through the early 1960s. Her work is both intimate, expressivist, and personal and also gives a deeply poetical response to the wars and terrors of the first half of the Twentieth Century, including both World Wars, the Russian Revolution, and the terrors and purges of Communism. Akhmatova lived and suffered through them.The Selected Poems includes works from seven collections; “Evening”, “Rosary”, “White Flock”, “Plantain”, “Anno Domini”, “Reed” and “The Seventh Book” together with two great long works, “Requiem” and the “Poem Without a Hero.” In her earlier works, Akhmatova became recognized as a major figure in the “Silver Age” of Russian literature in the years just before the Revolution. Her poems from this period tend to be short. They focus on her unhappy relationship with her first husband, killed by the communists in 1921 and with her lovers. The poems describe places in Old Russia, tend to be concentrated, and are full of lyricism and passion.Following the Russian Revolution, the passion continues. Akhmatova, her former husband, and her son, suffered continued pressure and persecution from the new regime. Her poems continue to describe her life and her love affairs and also assume a political tone of the sufferings engendered by wars and by communism. For many years, Akhmatova was forbidden to publish and her poems were recited and preserved by memory.The long poem “Requiem” depicts the experience of the poet and of countless others during the Soviet purges of 1937 — 1938. In her introduction, Akhmatova writes:”In the fearful years of the Yezov terror I spent seventeen months in prison queues in Leningrad. One day somebody ‘identified me. Besides me, in the queue, there was a woman with blue lips. She had, of course, never heard of me; but she suddenly come out of that trance so common to us all and whispered in my ear (everybody spoke in whispers there): ‘Can you describe this?’ And I said ‘Yes, I can.’ And then something like the shadow of a smile crossed what had once been her face.”This long poem is moving and accessible. Akhmatova did indeed describe the scene, as she told her fell0w-prisoner she could.The long “Poem without a Hero”, while also moving and deeply personal, is modernist and often opaque. It includes many literary allusions and allusions to the poet’s own life. The details and the individual sections of the work frequently are spare and taut. The poem describes the Siege of Leningrad. In the process, Ahkmatova reflects on her own life, on earlier history, and on the tragedies of the Twentieth Century. She wrote: “I frequently hear of certain absurd interpretations of ‘Poem without a Hero’. And I have been advised to make it clearer. This I decline to do. It contains no third, seventh, or twenty-ninth thoughts. I shall neither explain nor change anything. What is written is written.” The poem shows, among other things, the influence of the poetry of T.S. Elliott.In additional to the personal poems and the historical meditations, many of Akhmatova’s poems describe figures such as Sophocles, Dante, Beatrice, Rachel, Lot’s Wife, and Cleopatra. Here is a late poem, “Last Rose”, written in 1962 that Akhmatova read to Robert Frost during his visit to the Soviet Union.”Bowing down to the ground with Morozova,Dancing with the head of a lover,Flying from Dido’s Pyre in smokeTo burn with Joan at the stake –Lord! can’t you see I’m wearyOf this rising and dying and living.Take it all, but once more bring me closeTo sense the freshness of this crimson rose,”I was glad to get to know something of Akhmatova through the thoughtful gift of this Folio Society book. Readers without the good fortune of the gift, may make the gift of the poet’s acquaintance in the earlier Vintage paperback edition of her selected poems.Robin FriedmanGood serviceexcellent price for this very good translation of Ann Akhmatova’s work – the best we know of, according to one Russian speakerAnna Akhmatova was one of the century’s greatest lyric poets. D. M. Thomas has selected a fine overview of her poetic accomplishment, and translated the poems stunningly: both lyric cadences and the quality of spoken speech come through in his refashioning of the poems into English. (The Hayward/Kunitz tranlations are also fine, but for a brief introduction this is a wonderful book.)The volume contains her “Requieum,” a ten pagel lyric sequence which is my choice for the greatest poem of the twentieth century, as it combines personal lyricism, social witness, historical density, a primal narrative moment — in poems which are stunning, one after another.Perhaps only Yeats has rivalled Akhmatova’s exploration of love in modern times, and there are many moments when her symbolism, her brevity, her song-like qualities are reminiscent of the best of Yeats.This is a wonderful book, a fine introduction to a great, powerful, haunting poet.One often wonders, when one hears everyone and their brothers spouting superlatives about a poet from a historically repressive country, whether the superlatives are based on the poet’s actual work, or whether they’re in some way based on the poet’s admirable– but irrelevant– ability to perform within a culture that is repressive to the poet’s art. In some cases, the superlatives are justified, for example Vladimir Holan’s stunning book-length poem _A Night with Hamlet_, written while Holan was officially a non-person in Hungary in the sixties.Akhmatova has been called “the greatest Russian woman poet ever, and perhaps the greatest woman poet ever.” I can’t help but think those lauding on these kinds of laurels are looking more at her life than her work. There are certainly flashes of great brilliance here, but to put Akhmativa’s work up against that of, say, Elizabeth Bishop, Deborah Allbery, or even the underrated Dorianne Laux would quickly reveal many of its flaws.This is not to say that Akhmatova’s poetry is completely without merit, and one must be forced to consider the viability of the work of any translator who would consider “He, was it, through the packed hall/Sent you (or was it a dream?)” to be the best way to translate anything, much less poetry. And thus, perhaps, the original is far more eloquent than what we receive here. That taken into account, there is still the problem to contend with that much of Akhmatova’s work is, for obvious reasons, overtly political, and makes no attempt to convey its message artistically; worse yet, a good deal of that work is imagist, impressionist. The end result is something that’s thick, sludgy, and impossible to read.However, every once in a while a good line will shine through, and occasionally we find ourselves staring at a poem that seems to exist well outside the boundaries of this particular collection:* * *VoronezhAnd the town is frozen solid, leaded with ice.Trees, walls, snow, seem to be under glass. Cautiously I tread on crystals. The painted sleighs can’t seem to get a grip. And over the statue of Peter-in-Voronezh Are crows, and poplars, and a pale-green dome Washed-out and muddy in the sun-motes. The mighty slopes of the field of Kulikovo Tremble still with the slaughter of barbarians. And all at once the poplars, like lifted chalices, Enmesh more boisterously overhead Like thousands of wedding-guests feasting And drinking toasts to our happiness. And in the room of the banished poet Fear and the Muse take turns at the watch, And the night comes When there will be no sunrise.* * *Unfortunately, there’s too little of this and too much of the rest. Giving the benefit of the doubt where the translation is concerned, I can still only manage ** 1/2.… but a little glum.Book arrived promptly and in new condition. An outstanding compilation of this poet who lived through the excesses of Stalinist repression following the Russian revolution. Her moving sequence Requiem was written in response to her son’s imprisonment.

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