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  • Poetry
  • Archives
  • Past Events
    • Fall | 2012 Reading
    • Spring | 2013 Reading
    • Spring | 2014 Reading
    • Fall | 2015 Reading
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ANNA AKHMATOVA

from Wild Honey Is a Smell of Freedom

Wild honey has a scent - of freedom
Dust - a scent of sunshine
And a girl’s mouth - of violets.

But gold - nothing.
Water - like mignonette.
And like apple - love.
But we have learned that

blood smells only of blood.



                                Translated from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Farris



29   The Paris-American

Anna Akhmatova was a Russian modernist poet. A couple of her most celebrated poems include Requiem and Poem Without a Hero.

Ilya Kaminsky is the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo) and
co-editor of  Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins).
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Katie Farris is the author of BOYSGIRLS  (Marick Press) and  co-translator of Guy Jean's "If I were Born in Prague" (Argos Books). She  teaches at San Diego State Uniersity.
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   Next week's poet:

 Allen Edwin Butt
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