Poem Without a Hero & Selected Poems

by Anna Akhmatova, William McNaughton

Anna Akhmatova, one of the great poets of our century, has, like all Russian poets, proved difficult to translate. These distinctive versions of a broad selection of her work capture her plainness and directness while searching out an analog to her music in the careful and subtle music of American free verse. The result is not a replication of Akhmatova's style but a complement to it that often startles and gratifies with a starkness and beauty all its own.

Genres: Poetry, Russia, Russian Literature, Classics, Ebooks, 20th Century, Literature

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

also known as: Анна Ахматова and Anna Ajmátova

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.

Reviews

[Peiman E iran · Rating 1 out of 5]

‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، بانویِ روسی <آنا آخماتوا> این کتاب را در سه بخش جداگانه سروده است... بدونِ تردید با برگردانِ اشعارِ او به زبانِ فارسی، این اشعار برایِ من و شما، جذابیتی نخواهد داشت... ولی برایِ آشناییِ شما عزیزان، با سبکِ سروده هایِ <آنا آخماتوا> تصمیم گرفتم تا این ریویو را نگاشته و به انتخاب ابیاتی از این کتاب را در زیر برایِ شما بزرگواران بنویسم
----------------------------------------------
‎اينجا مردی پشتِ سرم مینشیند
نقشش همسری مشتاق نيست
‎رويدادی كه او و من خواهيم ساخت
قرنِ بيستم را سردرگم خواهد كرد
‎او را مانندِ مهره ای ميپذيرم
‎آن كه بخت ارزانی داشته است
******************************
‎من سايه ای هستم در درگاه
‎ در ميانِ سيَه-رامشی كژ تافته
‎به تماشایِ واپسين پارهٔ آسودگی 
ميشنوم
نواختنِ زنجير را از دوردستها
‎و رطوبتی خنک را حس كنم
‎سنگ، آتش، يخ...۰
******************************
‎از غروب تا طلوع
‎افرایی كهن در اتاق سر ميكشد
‎ و گویی ادراکِ فراقمان
‎دستی بيحس و كبود را بر می آورد
‎و از من ميخواهد از دور ياری رسانم
‎ زمين از زير، مرا ميلرزانَد
‎و چنين ستارهٔ تابانی بر می آید درونِ خانه ام
‎ كه هنوز ويران نشده است
‎همچنان كه در انتظار طوفان پيش از آرامش هستم
******************************
‎پشتِ سرم با پنهانكاریِ درخشان
‎همچنان كه خود را ميخواند- هفتم
‎به سویِ شامی پر و پيمان شتافت
‎وانمود ميكرد يادنامهٔ شبانه ای است
‎لنينگراد متبرک
‎باز ميگردد به سویِ اثير بومی اش
---------------------------------------------
‎امیدوارم این ریویو و این انتخاب ها، مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

[Helga · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
I am sharing three of my favourite poems by Akhmatova.
Oh, how I wish I knew the Russian language!

IN A DREAM

This black and endless
Separation:
I endure it too, everything-
Why are you crying? Come,
Give me your hand instead –
promise again
To come in dreams.
You and I
Are like grief and the mountain,
We will not meet
in this world.
But sometimes
will you send across the stars
A sign?

--------------------------------------

He loved three things
in this life:
Vespers, white peacocks,
And old maps of America,
Didn't love children crying,
Raspberries with tea,
Or feminine hysteria
…And I
was his wife.
-----------------------------------

To lose the freshness of the words
and simplicity of feeling
Is to be a painter without sight
Or an actor without voice and hands
Or a woman
with her beauty gone.
But do not try to keep for yourself
What God gives.
We are condemned-and we understand it
well –
To give everything, to withhold nothing.

Go, alone, carry healing to the blind
And, in an hour painful with doubt,
Discover the hard malice of disciples,
The cold indifference of the mob.

[Ensaio Sobre o Desassossego · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Nunca parei de escrever poesia. É nela que está a minha ligação com o tempo, com a nova vida do meu povo. No correr da escrita das minhas poesias eu vivia ao compasso dos ritmos que soavam na história heróica do meu país." ❤

Anna Akhmátova é uma das poetas russas mais importantes do século XX.

Nascida perto de Odessa, Akhmátova tinha como sua cidade, a sua casa São Petersburgo. Viu a cidade mudar de nome e ser devastada, viveu o terror estalinista, dois dos seus maridos foram mortos durante esta época e o seu filho esteve preso 15 anos. Além disso, muitos dos seus amigos também foram mortos pelo regime soviético, além de toda a pobreza em que se vivia na União Soviética. Viveu sob muita repressão, muito medo (praticamente todos os seus livros foram censurados), mas nunca deixou de escrever e "Poema sem herói" é considerada a grande obra da autora, um tributo à sua cidade e à Rússia.

A escrita da poeta é simples e ao mesmo tempo profunda, e senti algo durante esta leitura que ainda não sei explicar. Senti uma conexão, como se me revisse na escrita da autora, mesmo não tendo vivido nada do que a mesma viveu...

Tenho muito pena que nem os livros nem muitos dos poemas de Anna Akhmátova estejam traduzidos em Portugal. Relógio d'Água, tratem lá disso, por favor. Poeta, crítica literária e tradutora, Akhmátova merece ser mais (re)conhecida!

[fioo ! ♡ ∗ ˚ ˖࣪ ∗ ‎˖ ݁ . ° · ˚ ₊ · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Sótano del recuerdo»

Es pura tontería que vivo entristecida
Y que estoy por el recuerdo torturada.
No soy yo asidua invitada en su guarida
Y allí me siento trastornada.
Cuando con el farol al sótano desciendo,
Me parece que de nuevo un sordo hundimiento
Retumba en la estrecha escalera empinada.
Humea el farol. Regresar no consigo
Y sé que voy allí donde está el enemigo.
Y pediré benevolencia… pero allí ahora
Todo está oscuro y callado. ¡Mi fiesta se acabó!
Hace treinta años se acompañaba a la señora,
Hace treinta que el pícaro de viejo murió…
He llegado tarde. ¡Qué mala fortuna!
Ya no puedo lucirme en parte alguna,
Pero rozo de las paredes las pinturas
Y me caliento en la chimenea. ¡Qué maravilla!
A través del moho, la ceniza y la negrura
Dos esmeraldas grises brillan
Y el gato maúlla. ¡Vamos a casa, criatura!

¿Pero dónde es mi casa y dónde mi cordura?

[حسن · Rating 3 out of 5]

تختلف جداً موسيقى النصوص الشعرية و وقعها بحسب الترجمة. بشع و ركيك بالترجمة العربية.
بالانكليزية، التوزين و الايقاعية في محاولة فردية من المترجم أضفت على بعض الاشعار رقّة و مزاجية لم تكن تناسب الموضوع في مواضع كثيرة و لا حاجة اليها أبداً في القالب التراجيدي، فأضعفت قليلاً المعنى العام ..
على سبيل المثال، لاحظ الفارق الكبير بين الترجمتين:

You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. (Thomas)

و
There will be thunder then. Remember me.
Say 'She asked for storms.' (Kline)

NB. I have found a painting by Altman of her portrait, so beautiful
http://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:A...

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous and powerful. A must-read for everyone.

[Sanaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

okay the urge to yap overtook me MADARCHOD this was genuinely so good. I can tell why she's so famous my god. I am very partial to the 1940s poems but the parts where she's waiting in line in Siberia. Oh okay then wow. wish I knew Russian it's so blunt in a way that is not at all simple anyways ha my point was pls read this.

[Sophie Bowns · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good! I would’ve liked some of the poems to have more of a rhyme scheme, but I enjoyed it.

[SoulSurvivor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have limited experience reading twentieth century Russian poets ( Vlad Mayakovsky and Pasternak )
but was interested in Akhmatova from other readings . Her style is unique and she had interesting insights , but I'm back to Russian novels , where I belong .

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

mayhew & mcnaughton

[Abbi Dion]

although this world is not my own, i will never forget it.

[Tiff Gibbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not realize that Anna Akhmatova, like so many of my favourite female writers, studied Law! Although she did not finish, reading this in the introduction was a fascinating titbit.

Her early years, in that short biography, seem quite beautiful. Her and Modigliani sharing a bench in the Luxembourg Gardens, reciting Verlaine in unison. She recalls of a trip around Northern Italy that it was “like a dream that stay with you all your life” - and having completed a trip around Northern Italy in 2018, I can concur with that!

As with a lot of early literary movements, I feel a sense of envy that I can’t participate. I read about The Wandering Dog in 1911, a cafe that opened at midnight three days a week for poetry readings, theatrical improv, and I wish I could have seen it.

Of course, from such a lovely start comes a life of pain, of misfortune, and political oppression with which Akhmatova would spend many of her working years negotiating (and rallying against).

Just as an aside, I came here off the back of Sontag’s work, in which Sigrid Nunez (one time partner of Sontag’s son, David) likened Sontag to Akhmatova. I do see why. Both tall, willowy, wily, with a fearsome and uncompromising intelligence. They both value their strength, and champion that their solitariness is indeed a strength. Both value freedom over comfort and both appear to want to leave true, honest lives as best they can. Indeed, Akhmatova lived quite the life, and it shines through in her poems.

Overall, the earlier poetry was not for me. I don’t like overt references to religion - it’s lazy. Thus, a lot of poetry from Rosary did not resonate with me. It’s not that I find the mention of religion, God, or the church offensive - although irreligious, I respect people who are religious. It’s just such an unoriginal stop-gap for symbolism. Universal, sure, but easy, like using a crutch word. It's relying on an established metric to evoke a feeling. I also find Greek mythology similarly lazy. It's like a phase a poet has to get through to get over.

Momentum is found in Anno Domini MCMXXI, wherein Akhmatova begins to mourn (I'm assuming) her first husband's murder at the hands of the Soviet Party. From the first poem, I felt very suddenly moved as Akhmatova’s work took focus. “She loves, loves blood, This Russian earth,” hits you like a punch. Her grief radiates off the page. You can't help but sit up and take notice. Akhmatova practically demands it from you, like sounding a battlecry.

Rage drenches ever line, muted, clenched teeth, you feel it in the pace, like you’re sprinting franticaly alongside her as you continue to read. Another poem begins, “Submit to you? You are out of your mind.”

In Requiem, we see a new and sweeping crystallisation of despair at the persecution of her beloved son, Lev, and the many long days Akhmatova spent in lines waiting to pass through to him supplies. She hisses at you, “There was a time, when only the dead / Smiled, glad to have peace.” You feel the claustrophobia, the paranoia and the crushing despair, but also the unrelenting resilience that caused her to trudge every day to the prison and try to remember the indignity meted out to Soviet citizenry at Leningrad prisons.

Funnily enough, Poem Without A Hero was also not to my taste. I dislike epics - I prefer bite-sized poetry so that if one poem never finds its way, or lags, I can flip to the next one and rectify the situation. What I was struck by is how much Akhmatova values her own strength, and how ahead of her own time in terms of the women’s liberation movement she was in regards to this.

Her political poetry has a special place for me, and I will seek out to read Requiem and Anno Domini MCMXXI next.

[Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

One got a sense of her homeland. Of who she was a part of and then forced to despise through her own story. It was nostalgic for sure.

annotations:
(from Evening)
-He loved three tings
in this life:
Vespers, white peacocks,
and old maps of America,
Didn't love children crying,
Raspberries with tea,
Or feminine hysteria
...And I
was his wife.

(from Rosary)
-In that burning light I suffocate -
Under those eyes like the sun’s rays
I shudder: this one
Will tame me
…
May love like a tombstone
Closer over my life.

(from White Flock)
-My voice is feeble, my will strong
I am better without love,
…
And the past loses its force!
Freedom is near. I watch
A strip of sunlight
Catch the wet new ivy
And I forgive…everything.

(from To V.S. Sreznevskaya)
-I become
More forgetful than the most forgetful.
Th years slide in silence
And I can never return
To unkissed lips, unsmiling eyes.

(from H.V.H)
-In closeness
There is a secret boundary,
Love does not cross it.
Passion doesn’t to break it.
Nor lips
Pressed together in terrible silence.
Nor the heart
Torn by love.

(from Anno Domino MCMXXI)
-Submit to you? You are out of your mind.
I submit only to God.
…
But you understand don’t you?
I came of my own will.
December was coming, and the winds cried in
The field,
And it was so bright in your slavery,
And outside the window, the dark was watching
Me.

(from Lot’s Wife)
-Only I can never forget-
She who gave her life
For one look.

(from Poem Without A Hero)
-As from a tower, I see everything
As if I said goodbye to all
As I said goodbye before

-For one moment of peace
I would give up eternal peace.

-And then won’t you say
One more time
That word that overcomes death
And unties the enigma of my life?

-The air in exile is bitter
Like poisoned wine.

(from 1944)
-Now my loved souls are with the stars.
How sweet, to have no one to lose;
To be able to cry.

(from Cinque)
-As at the edge of a cloud
I remember your words, your voice

You for whom because of my work
The nights were brighter than the days.

We were snatched from the earth
And walked the air with the stars.

And there was neither despair, nor shame, no
Remorse
Nor now, nor after, nor before.

But I am calling you,
Tell me, can you hear?

(from In a Dream)
-You and I
Are like grief and the mountain,
We will not meet
In this world.
But sometimes
Will you send across the stars
A sign?

(from Secrets of the Trade)
-And there is another one
Who comes secretly
Neither sound nor color
Neither color nor sound
He changes and twists
And will not give himself up
Alive into my hand.

But this one!…this one drank blood
Drop by drop
As a cruel young girl drinks love
And saying no word to me
became again-silence.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

i felt the emotions in this so much — akhmatova's pain and sorrow, the immensely difficult life she led. she has so much character and personality, and it really emanates from her writing. obviously some weak lines here and there, but overall very strong.

[Janée Baugher · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read these poems, I couldn't help putting down the book to compose my own lines of verse. Highly inspiring, with haunting qualities and curious narratives. I couldn't appreciate many modes of imagery and found that most poems didn't stay with me days, weeks, years later.

[Cellophane Renaissance · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see only the red tulip,





And I take ten years of torment, of cries,
And my sleepless nights

And I put them in a single word ­

I speak for nothing.
You go away.
And in my soul
Again there is emptiness
and light.

1913

[laudine · Rating 4 out of 5]

In closeness
there is a secret boundary.
Love does not cross it.
Passion does not break it.
Nor lips
pressed together in terrible silence.
Nor the heart
torn by love.

[Kate Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I steal and steal, right and left
And without shame,
A little from this impish life
And everything from silence and the night."

[inês ‧₊☽◯☾₊‧]

always a dream

[Samseri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why are you crying? Come, Give me your hand instead
promise again
To come in dreams.

[Airam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Única colectânea portuguesa de prosa de Akhmatova e dos melhores recursos em Portugal para entrar no espírito da intelligentsia russa no início do século XX. A selecção é breve, mas bastante compreensiva. Os textos estão muito cortados, o que pessoalmente me incomoda e faz abandonar o livro constantemente para procurar o texto na íntegra [Собрание сочинений в 6 томах, tomos 5 e 6], mas entendo que neste formato a autora possa chegar a mais pessoas. E é preciso que chegue!