Customer Reviews

Poems

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the volume that introduced me to the works of Anna Akhmatova. After having read this in one evening, I could not sleep - I was so moved by her poetry. The translation must have captured her heart and soul because it certainly captured mine - it inspired me to get up in the middle of the night and draw pictures to go with what I had read. I understood at once the love the Russian people have for her. Since then, I have gobbled up everything translated into English that I can find, but I still think this little volume is the best of all and return to it again and again. Enjoy......

This is a marvelous book. It is extremely difficult to accurately capture the flavor of the original writing in translation, but Kunitz has done this and more - the English itself is poetry. The book is dual language, so readers of Russian can read the original next to the English. Both are excellent.

The selection is fairly representative of Akhmatova's life work, with early poems from 1909, through her affair with the poet Blok in the teens, the Terror and War, to her deathbed in 1961. I particularly enjoyed the translation of the epic "Requiem". Without a doubt, this is the best English version I have ever read. My only complaint is its berevity - at 40 poems, it merely whets the readers appetite for more - a pity, given the outstanding nature of both poet and translator.

For those who are not familiar with Anna Akhmatova, this is a gem. If you have read some of her work, this is a must-have volume. Enjoy!

I'm not a great poetry lover, but the simplicity and meaning of her poems is even enough to turn me on to poetry!!!! Her words reach my life experiences and touch my soul.

I grew up in Russia reading Akhmatova, Esenin and other great poets of the "Silver Period". To this day, Akhmatova is the poet I turn to when nostalgia hits. So when I wanted to introduce Russian poetry to my English-speaking husband, I bought this volume.
I am giving this book only four stars because of the somewhat limited selection of the poems: some of her greatest (and best known in Russia) are missing. Kunitz really shines in being able to relay the mood and (surprisingly) the rythm of Akhmatova, even if the actual translatoin is not quite accurate. Overall, this is a great introduction to the poems of a truly talented poet. However, you will soon find yourself shopping for the complete works.

This particular translation of Anna Akhmatova's work by Stanley Kunitz is by far a literary achievement of epic scale. Russian is a language with many nuances. But Kunitz captures the rhythm and texture like no English writer ever has. It's a gem! If you're considering a discovery of Anna Akhmatova, there is no finer translation in the English language. My only wish is that Kunitz had done more, translating Gogol or Chekhov. but we're left with both masterpieces. I for one am eternally grateful.

While reading Harrison Salisbury's :Nine Hundred Days" about the seige of Leningrad, I found myself longing to re-read some Russian lit after 35 years. Ahkmatova is as profound and powerful as ever, though still mournful and sad, trying to make sense of a world gone mad with killinmg, jailing and hatred. I read her in college with the hope the world would change, but alas, it has not and the siren song she sang in the 1800's holds the same grip in 2009.She reminds you of the fear and desolation lost love brings while at the same timem finds a glimmer of hope to destroy the hatred that has cost so many, many lives. Beautiful and powerful. Michelle Czerner, 2/2009

This is a excellent selection of poems by the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. The translations are by the noted Russian scholar Max Hayward and the noted American poet Stanley Kunitz. As a non-Russian speaker, I can't really judge the quality of translations but the end product is terrific. There are a number of wondeful short lyrics. The peak of this selection is a powerful version of the great Requiem, Akhmatova's memorial for the victims of Stalin's purges. A truly great poem.

This is my latest addition to my Everyman's Library of Pocket Poets. I read it in one evening and loved this little book. The Everyman's volumes are very handsome and have a ribbon attached for marking a favorite page. At this point I have almost a dozen volumes.

Akhmatova is a legendary figure. She is one of the four giants of Russian Poetry in the twentieth - century. Mandelshtamm, Pasternak and Tsvetayava are the others. Her legend relates not only to her Poetry but to her personal integrity and courage through the Stalin years. She was the friend and champion of other poets, and wrote great poems about Mandelstamm and Pasternak. She was forced into silence for many years but the work of those years later appeared and spoke to the great mass of readers of Russian. She is considered a great musical poet and one of fierce intelligence. Translations of her poetry cannot come close to the music of the original. But nonetheless the reader can feel in her poetry a rare kind of intensity and power. I wish I could read Russian and appreciate her work more completely.

I don't remember how I found her, but this woman is wonderful. Deep, lyric and sometimes so funny. Google her to get a sample and I do believe you'll fall in love.