Category Archives: poetry

Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem

A reference to this poem appeared in my twitter feed and I had to go reread it. I used to have this posted on my office door, in a clipping from the Christian Science Monitor, back when I was an academic librarian. I kept the yellowed clipping for years because the poem was a story about the power of writing and description, of naming the unspeakable, giving the reader power over it. Her words are matter of fact but powerful, and I was also fascinated by the painting of Akhmatova (above) that illustrated the article. by Nathan Altman.)

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone ‘picked me out’.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) – ‘Could one ever describe
this?’ And I answered – ‘I can.’ It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
[The 1st of April in the year 1957. Leningrad]

From the poemhunter site

Today is Gwendolyn Brooks’ Birthday

That seems like cause for celebration.

One of my favorite poems of hers is Kitchenette Building.

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong
Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.

You can hear her read it here at the Poetry Foundation site.

I remember being introduced to her work in grade school in Illinois. That was the first time I realized women could be writers. You’d think it would’ve been Emily Dickinson, but Illinois was proud of its Poet Laureate and made sure she was taught in our classes. Ms. Brooks was alive and part of my world, not part of a distanced past. She was writing about things I’d seen and experienced myself, not Victorian philosophizing.

She and Jane Addams made growing up in Illinois a lucky thing – I was exposed to two extraordinary thinkers and writers at an early age, because they were part of local history. (And, not to pile on here, but did you know Jane Addams won the Nobel Peace prize?)