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Title: Selected Poems of Anna Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova, Judith Hemschemeyer, Roberta Reeder ISBN: 0-939010-61-5 Publisher: Zephyr Press (MA) Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: Amazing Lyric Poet, admirable translation and selection
Comment: Anna Akhmatova not only lived through some of the most exciting, dangerous, and horrific times in Russian and Soviet history, she was also blessed with an incredible lyrical gift in writing poetry. Collected here, in admirable translations and with the original Russian, are over a hundred of her finer (shorter) poems. The passion and intensity of this poet are clearly visible from the start, from her early love poems of "Tskarskoye Selo" to her later, more serious, "Requiem".
Readers who know enough Russian to read the cyrillic text will appreciate Akhmatova's musical lyricism, the alliteration and natural rhymes and cadences she is able to (so easy, seemingly!) create. The English translations naturally do not have this music, despite the very valiant attempts to recreate it by Hemschemeyer. She usually gets the cadence, rhythm and stress pretty well, but... well... it's never the same. However, since the poetry is difficult, those who have some Russian (but not perfect, like myself) will really enjoy having both languages present on opposing pages.
This is a chief complaint I have with the "Complete Poems", by the way, which have 800 poems, a lot of essays and tons of beautiful photographs, but NO RUSSIAN ORIGINALS! Argh. What is that? The translations are much less than half the worth of these poems.
One big complaint with this volume, though, is that it leaves out Akhmatova's major long poem, "Poem without a Hero". It baffles me why it wasn't included in this volume, even though it runs a bit long. They should have added it to the end. The editor's notes that a subsequent volume of "Poem without a Hero" is forthcoming on its own is small consolation...
There are short introductions (abridged from the "Complete Poems" and not terribly interesting), and some notes at the end (somewhat useful).
So, this is a great poet, and this may be one of the better editions for readers. Because of the slight complaints, it only gets four stars, but Akhmatova herself deserves all five!
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Title: Osip Mandelstam: Fifty Poems by Osip Mandelstam ISBN: 0892550066 Publisher: Persea Books Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Poems of Akhmatova : Izbrannye Stikhi by Anna Akhmatova, Stanley Kunitz, Max Hayward ISBN: 0395860032 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 30 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Selected Poems (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Osip Mandelstam, James Green, Nadezhda Mandelshtam, Donald Davie ISBN: 0140184740 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet by Roberta Reeder ISBN: 0312134290 Publisher: St Martins Pr Special Pub. Date: 01 November, 1995 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: The Noise of Time: Selected Prose (European Classics) by Osip Mandelshtam, Clarence Brown, Osip Mandelstam ISBN: 0810119285 Publisher: Northwestern University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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