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earlgreybooks's review against another edition
4.0
I think Akhmatova's poetry is both beautiful and haunting. This was a nice little collection of her work, but I'm interested in reading her full body of work.
astridsbridg's review against another edition
4.0
This was an incredibly illuminating read, and my first serious venture into Russian Poetry. I now want to explore much more; the bleak history and dark poems in this translation are gripping and more than a little prophetic, in my eyes. Several poems, in their stark descriptions of winter and the cold chill of authoritarianism, definitely evoke the storm that gathers on the horizon of our own modern lives. The standout poem in this collection is "Poem Without A Hero." A small part of it was included here, and I plan on reading the full translation of the epic as soon as possible. What I was able to read was a masterpiece. Seeing the poems both in translation and in the original Russian was illuminating as well, and the afterward and prelude give valuable context for both her life and the allusions made in her poetry.
abetterjulie's review against another edition
4.0
My first exposure to Akhmatova, and I found her work to be like a knife: painful and sharp. I will forever be fascinated by a culture which has tolerated so much misery. The end-notes were valuable, and I'd recommend reading them to get the full picture for the poems notated.
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