I feel tremendously lucky that I snatched the last used copy of A Poetic Pilgrimage by Amanda Haight on Amazon.com. It provided a short but focused and compelling introduction to Akhmatova's life and work and offered gorgeous translations of her poems as well as the best explanations of them that I have ever read. Coming out of re-reading her selected poems in Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series, I felt there was enormous value in placing them in the context of her life while also steering clear of the most obvious explanations. I also noticed when I read the Everyman's volume that her production seems to have been much slimmer in 1920 and it was interesting to read that it was because of the man she was with at the time. I don't remember reading about another artist who seems to have borne such general unhappiness in her personal life and sometimes crushing sorrow (she had many failed relationships and her relationship to her son was difficult too and some of her friends and lovers died under Stalinism) as what she viewed as the price she had to bear for her unique sensibility. I am not trying to say she viewed it as "worth it", but people who feel like they belong to the world and are content generally don't have a burning drive to break conventions and forge a unique creative path.
My favorite quote is on p.1: "She had to learn early to accept the fact that the sacrifice of her poetic gifts could not make her what she was not, an ordinary woman."
Comments