dublinka

I've been reading a biography of Anna Akhmatova for what seems like ages. But I'm enjoying it too much to abandon it. If you haven't heard of her, you probably will,because a film is due out soon, adding to a little known 1991 documentary by Jill Janows. 'I visited the poet' is a favourite of many of her admirers:


From Rosary (1914)

-to Alexander Blok

I visited the poet
Precisely at noon. Sunday.
It was quiet in the spacious room
And beyond the windows, intense cold

And a raspberry sum
Above shaggy, bluish smoke...
How keenly my taciturn host
Regarded me!

He had the kind of eyes
That everyone must recall,
It was better for me to be careful,
And not look at them at all.

But I will recall the conversation,
The smoky noon, Sunday
In the tall, gray house
By the sea gates of the Neva.