Anna Akmatova

[Steppe]

I have gotten her complete poems from the library
several times and loved the ones I read. The book is large ( over 600 pages ).

I saw a copy for sale on Amazon for $20 and ordered it.
I suppose I'll be trying to write like her now.

I can't believe it ! She is considered by some to be the
greatest woman poet of all time, and her complete works for only $20.

Are any of you familiar with her poems and what do you think of them ?

[nybx4life]

Nope.
Not to belittle her accomplishments, because I'm sure that her poems are far greater than my assumption will make her seem, but if my school doesn't have any work from her, her poems must not be as famous as the title "greatest woman poet of all time" suggests

[Steppe]

I believe that she might not be well known in our country because she was Russian and has only been published lately.

I believe she was banned in Russia for a while as well.

[nybx4life]

"Lately?"
Define that.
Because Walter Dean Myers is a great writer, and he lived during the 1900s

[Gray Rose]

Akhmatova is a great Russian poet, considered my most to be the greatest Russian woman poet. You can read about her on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhmatova) among other places. She is absolutely amazing in the original. Not sure about the English.

nybx4life, if you are interested in poetry, you should perhaps look into this. After all, we learn about poetry by reading great poets. Your high school library, good as it may be, is not the whole wide world's world's measure. If a high school in Norway, for instance, does not carry a single book by Yeats, that does not reflect badly on Yeats, don't you think?

Akhmatova was never exactly banned, but she was prohibited from publishing poetry for quite a while. Steppe, if Russian poetic style works for you, you might consider checking out other poets of the Silver Age: Tsvetayeva, Blok, Briusov, Gumilev, Mayakovsky, and others.

[nybx4life]

I'm partly interested in poetry, so I'll take you up on that idea Rose. I'm just wondering if the public library will have it...

[Gray Rose]

I'm partly interested in poetry, so I'll take you up on that idea Rose. I'm just wondering if the public library will have it...

Fair enough. And a 1-minute search for Bronx,NY reveals that a public library indeed has it (http://leopac1.nypl.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1208926B78QU4.4106&profile=fdc&source=%7E%21fdc&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=1100001%7E%21127898%7E%215&ri=1&aspect=basic&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=akhmatova&index=GW&uindex=&aspect=basic&menu=search&ri=1). Good luck; note that I cannot guarantee the quality of the translation. Much is lost in translation, I find, especially in poetry. That's why I like to learn languages.

If the idea of Russian poets strikes your fancy, check out John Crowley's novel "The Translator." It captures almost perfectly what it feels like to be in a vicinity of Russian poets and their poems. And it's written in wonderful English.

[JRH]

Most of the sites I found about her called her the Most Famous Woman Poet in Russian History,and she is also listed on several sites as a "Christian Poet". She died on the 12th anniversary of Stalin's death in 1966.

I found only a couple sites that showed her work on the web, the first being "Lot's Wife" and "In Memory of M.B on Poetry.org at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1 and the 2d and larger selection of 20 poems at: http://www.poemhunter.com/anna-akhmatova/

On 1st impression, I find her quite impressive, even when featuring "Free Verse".

She's worth checking out.

Jim Hoye, (JRH)

[Gray Rose]

On 1st impression, I find her quite impressive, even when featuring "Free Verse".

She's worth checking out.

Jim Hoye, (JRH)

Jim - I am afraid to disappoint: never in her life did Akhmatova write in Free Verse.
Translations, as I said.

The Russian poetic tradition strongly prefers rhymed forms, even at this time; in English rhymed poems are often considered to be "greeting-card poetry". Translators take rhymed Russian poems and render them into free verse, otherwise the works are not taken seriously.

[JRH]

Fair enough by me Rose as I preferred those in meter and rhyme but most of the ones I looked at were translated in "Free Verse" or appeared so to me on the basis of a quick glance, and I'm glad to see you have some valuable knowledge to share with us concerning the Russian Poets.

I always distrust translations into English in any case, because most lanquages differ so much in their structure that it take a superior poet to capture both the substance and the flavor of the original and I particularly distrust those done in the last century, as I have little respect for most of the translators I know of as Poets.

Thanks for the tip off.

Jim Hoye, (JRH)

P.S. for myself I'd be far more inclined to give them respect in their original form as I write primarily in "Rhyme" myself. (and most Moderns don't give me any respect either).

[Steppe]

One of the very best translations into English from the original (German ) is Ruth and Matthew Mead's "Shadow lands", the poems of Johannes Bobrowski. It is often said that translations become the translators poems. If they are very good poems I really don't care. They say a lot of Bobrowski is in this translation and Bobrowski himself who knew English read and liked them.

I'm told the "Complete poems of Anna Akhmatova" are very good translations. Nothing can be perfect. Just like translating our poems into another language. Like translations from Li Po or Tu FU.

If you don't have a flair for learning new languages you are stuck with a translation. If they have made good poems, I'm happy.

[Gray Rose]

A translation is both a blessing and a curse. I think we should do well to remember that the original stands behind each translation. If you happen to like the translation, there is absolutely no problem, but what if you don't? We have an example above. JRH was expressing misgivings because he thought that Akhmatova wrote free verse. But she didn't! He wasn't judging the original.

I cannot for the life of me imagine how anyone who can read the original would walk away from her poems untouched. The translator might be a great poet him/herself, but that rarely happens, even though I know some counterexamples. Heaney's Beowulf is not less Heaney than it is Beowulf, but it is a splendid piece of work.

I am not saying we shouldn't read foreign poetry in translation - on the contrary. All I'm saying that we should have a certain awareness that not all things that are a work of genius in the original will retain their supernova flare in translation. That's all.

[nybx4life]

yeah, that's true. Sometimes, Japanese cartoons translated into English makes the show sound stupid. But, if I learned the language, It would sound better.