Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Anna Akhmatova (Author), D. M. Thomas (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2006

Anna Akhmatova is not only Russia’s finest woman poet but perhaps the greatest in the history of Western culture. This volume brings together all of D. M. Thomas’s acclaimed translations of Akhmatova’s poems, including “Poem Without a Hero” and “Requiem,” her poem of the Stalinist Terror.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The greatest Russian poetess of the twentieth century Her fortitude and independence, the breadth of her compassion and the clarity of her realistic vision erased the line between herself and others; her intensely personal lyrics became the void of her nation's tragedy New York Times Book Review Tragedy did not wither her: it crowned her with majesty...Her life, in Keats's phrase, became 'a continual allegory', its strands interwoven with the story of a people. Indeed, her poems can be read in sequence as a 20th-century Russian chronicle Her Poem Without a Hero is perhaps one of the greatest poems of the 20th century Guardian A timeless poet of Stalin's reign who more than anyone captured its seething fear and hopelessness The Times A genius of Russian poetry Sunday Times Beautiful, clever... she came to represent the aspirations of so many, putting real flesh on Shelley's aphorism about poets, not tyrants, being the unacknowledged legislators of the world Sunday Telegraph Her poems always lift me up. She elevates emotions, makes them almost sacred...I always find her a real solace and an incredible inspiration The extraordinary misery of her life and the extraordinary merits of her poems make Anna Akhmatova one of the great literary figures of modern times Economist Once, when young, she had written the lines which lovers quoted to one another. Later she provided words which thousands of men and women repeated under their breath, as they suffered, feared and waited. Observer Not an easy person, but a grand one, and a great poet, described by one of her friends as "trailing behind her an invisible mantle of fame, sorrow, great losses, hurts" Sunday Times --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, Russian (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (July 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140424644
• ISBN-13: 978-0140424645
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #888,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book of lyric poetry, September 29, 2000

By 

HuckVT - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Poems (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

Anna 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.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The poet as witness and hero, March 12, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

The incredible courage of Anna Akhmatova in being true to her art and her homeland through the kinds of sufferings people in the West have known little of the like of is evident in these poems. The desolation and distance of seperation from loved ones is another subject written powerfully about here. I do not know Russian and cannot speak for the quality of translation. But Kunitz's renderings sound like true poetry. In the introduction Max Hayward tells in brief the story of her incredible isolation in life and dedication to her poetry. Her loyalty to her friends in dark times, and to the other three of the ' four of Russian poetry in this century' (Pasternak Mandelstam Tsetayava ) is also poignantly described. As is the role she had for the silent masses as one of those poetic voices who spoke for the suffering of all the Russians both in the wars and through the time of the Stalinist nightmare.

Here are two of the poems that especially moved me.

"The Last Toast"

I drink to our ruined house,
to the dolor of my life,
to our loneliness together:
and to you I raise my glass,
to lying lips that have betrayed us,
to dead- cold, pitiless eyes,
and to the hard realities:
that the world is brutal and coarse,
that God in fact has not saved us.

I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE WHO LEFT THE LAND

I am not one of those who left the land
to the mercy of its enemies
Their flattery leaves me cold,
my songs are not for them to praise.

But I pity the exile's lot,
Like a felon, like a man half- dead,
dark is your path, wanderer;
wormwood infects your foreign bread.

ut here , in the murk of conflagration,
where scarcely a friend is left to know,
we, the survivors, do not flinch
from anything, not from a single blow.

Surely the reckoning will be made
after the passing of this cloud.
We are the people without tears,
straighter than you.. more proud..

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could be better, August 11, 2009

By 

Kristine M. "Kristine" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

I got this selection of poetry because it's Akhmatova's highlights (e.g. Requiem and Poem Without a Hero) by a reliable publisher, but when I went to read Requiem I was a bit underwhelmed: I've read more moving, less wooden translations of the poem. I've studied Russian (not to the extent that I would be able to understand or appreciate the work entirely in its intended language) and Russian literature (in English) and I think I'll try Walter Arndt's translations (I was pleased by his translations of Pushkin's poetry) next time.