A review by pdxpiney
Poems of Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Clear-eyed examination of horrors of war, grief, and exile from a poet who lived and loved an incredible life. Vivid translation and worthwhile foreword. 

Why is this age worse than earlier ages?
In a stupor of grief and dread
have we not fingered the foulest wounds
and left them unhealed by our hands?

In the west the falling light still glows,
and the clustered house tops glitter in the sun,
but here death is already chalking the doors with crosses,
and calling the ravens, and the ravens are flying in.