Free Evening: Poetry of Anna Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova Page A

attached to the sensory affection, or in the sense of sentimental souvenirs, but this is an altogether different feeling of connection, incomprehensible and inescapable, revealing itself to us now in sorrowful, now in rejoicing delight, that we reference above. It seems to us that unlike other lovers of things, Anna Akhmatova possesses an ability to understand and love things exactly in their incomprehensible connection to the experienced minutes. She often accurately and specifically mentions some object (a glove on the table, a cloud like a squirrel pelt in the sky, yellow light in the bedroom, a three-cornered hat in the park of Tsarskoe Selo), appearing to have no relationship to the whole poem, left behind and forgotten, but precisely this mention makes the prick more tangible, the poison we feel more sweet. Had this squirrel pelt been omitted, and the whole poem, perhaps, would not have such a fragile poignancy that it has.
    We don’t want to say that things mentioned by the author have such a special meaning every time: often they are no more than sentimental souvenirs or feelings transferred from a person onto things that belong to her. We say this not in reproach of the young poet, because it is already no small feat – to compel the reader to dream, and cry, and become angry together with you, even by the means of sentimental emotionality, - but especially value that first understanding of the sharp and incomprehensible meaning of things that we do not encounter very often. And it seems to us that Anna Akhmatova has that heightened perceptibility, to which aspired the doomed to death members of the society.
    By this we do not wish to say that her ideas and mood always applied to death, but their intensity and sharpness is such. Let us conclude that she does not belong to the poets who are particularly merry, but to those who are always stinging.
    It seems to us that she is alien to mannerism, which, if she has one, is somewhat homogenous with the mannerism of Laforgue, meaning a capricious child who is accustomed to always being heard and being admired. Among the very young poets, of course, there are others who strive for the delicate and, we would say, fragile poetry, but at the time, when some are searching for it in description of objects conventionally considered delicate: Sevres cups, fireplaces, harlequins, knights and madonnas (Ehrenburg), others in unusually refined analysis of deliberately-fanciful experiences (Mandelshtam), the third kind in ironic descriptions of intimate, somewhat demonstratively-everyday life (Marina Tsvetaeva), - it seems to us, that the poetry of Anna Akhmatova makes a sharp and fragile impression because its own perceptions are such, from herself the poet only adds a Lafoguesque, pleasant to our taste, mannerism.
    Vyacheslav Ivanov once expressed the thought that original poets before anything else acquire their own manner, which subsequently they renounce for the sake of their “face,” which in turn is brought as sacrifice to their style. From the fact that in the given situation the poet already has an established mannerism, it is easy to conclude that this poet is original and that a new female voice, different from other and audible, despite the apparent, as if desired by its possessor, weakness of tone, has joined the general chorus of Russian poets.
    We are not writing a critique, and our role is a rather minor one: only to announce the name and somehow present the newly arrived. We can hint slightly at her origins, indicate certain signs and voice our conjectures, - which is what we are doing. And thus, ladies and gentlemen, she comes towards us, new and young, but having all the credentials necessary for becoming a real poet. And her name is – Anna Akhmatova.
     
     
     
    1912
    M. Kuzmin

     
     
     
    I
     

    Любовь
    То змейкой, свернувшись клубком,
    У самого сердца колдует,
    То целые дни