A Poet You Should Know - Anna Akhmatova

Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova, was a Russian modernist poet, and is one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.

Why is she not better known to readers outside Russia? Because she was a woman? Because she died during the cold war and we just didn't pay attention? Even today it is difficult to find information online about Akhmatova. Either her work is not typically studied in the west, or the research and papers are not widely published. 

Akhmatova's work ranges from short lyric poems to intricately structured cycles, such as Requiem , her tragic masterpiece about the Stalinist terror. Her style, characterized by its economy and emotional restraint, was strikingly original and distinctive to her contemporaries. 

(Primarily purloined from The Source of All Things Knowable)

They Didn’t Meet Me

They didn’t meet me, roamed,
On steps with  lanterns bright.
I entered quiet home
In murky, pail moonlight.
Under a lamp’s green halo,
With smile of kept in rage,
My friend said, “Cinderella,
Your voice is very strange…”
A cricket plays its fiddle;
A fire-place grew black.
Oh, someone took my little
White shoe as a keep-sake,
And gave me three carnations,
While casting dawn eyes –.
My sins for accusations,
You couldn’t be disguised.
And heart hates to believe in
The time, that’s close too,
When he will ask for women
To try on my white shoe.

Anna Akhmatova

you're divine! said me

I love ee cummings
and I'm not exactly repulsed by tom hiddleston. 

mr. hiddleston's voice? 
sweet as bourbon, thick as wood smoke, deep as a blush.

and tom hiddleston reading this poem? aural sex.

Click to listen

may i feel said he - ee cummings

may i feel said he
(i’ll squeal said she
just once said he)
it’s fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let’s go said he
not too far said she
what’s too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
it is love said she)
if you’re willing said he
(but you’re killing said she

but it’s life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don’t stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she
you’re divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)