Oberlin College Press

Anna Akhmatova

POEM WITHOUT A HERO & SELECTED POEMS (translated by Lenore Mayhew & William McNaughton)

Paper $14.95 (ISBN 0-932440-50-9)

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.

At my neck, small rosary beads,
My hands are hidden in a wide muff,
My eyes look out distracted
Unable to cry.

In the shadow of purpling silk
My face pales,
Straight bangs
Brush my eyebrows.

And this is nothing at all like flight,
This slow and uncertain walking
As if there were a raft under my feet
And not the squares of the parquet.

My mouth is slightly open,
My breathing difficult and uneven,
And at my shoulder flowers tremble
The flowers of an unconcluded rendezvous.

--Anna Akhmatova, 1913
translated by Lenore Mayhew & William McNaughton