Well, fellow bibliophiles, it’s National Poetry Month again!  And you know what that means: lots of bloggers reading, writing, and posting poems all month.

I’m not a big poetry reader.  I have a poetry sweet spot – not too simplistic, not too everyday, not so complex or flowery that the whole thing goes over my head – and there are hardly any poems out there that hit it.  I have my small group of beloved poets – A.A. Milne, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson and, most of all, my cherished e.e. cummings.  (I have a recurring fantasy of sitting A.A. Milne and e.e. cummings down together and forcing them to like one another.  No, love.  Forcing, if I have to.)

But when all’s said and done, I just don’t read much poetry at all.  I’d prefer a good historical classic, or an atmospheric new release, or a biography or memoir of a favorite personality, to a volume of poetry.  Since I read for the joy of it, I don’t have any problem with skipping books or genres that don’t bring me happiness.  (Which is why you never see true crime or thrillers on here.)

Still.  Every so often, a girl wants to expand her horizons a little bit.  You know, find something – or someone – new, and fall in love afresh.  So I’ve decided to find someone new on the poetry front and hope to fall in love, and I’ve chosen Anna Akhmatova.

I had never heard of Akhmatova until 2011, when I read Molotov’s Magic Lantern, a nonfiction pseudo-memoir-slash-travelogue-slash-history by journalist Rachel Polonsky, who discovered that she was living in a flat below the former residence of a notorious Soviet honcho, who – ironically – was an “ardent bibliophile” who collected the works of many writers and intellectuals he personally sent to the Gulag.  Akhmatova came up as an essential reading experience for anyone who considers herself a fan of Russian literature, and I’m ashamed to say I had no idea who she was.

I’ve read many of the major Russian writers – Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Gogol – but there are major holes in my tour of Russian literature, if I can even say I’ve embarked on one.  (There’s a difference between a fan of Russian writers and a fan of Richard Pevear and Larisa Volokhonsky.  I’d like to think I’m both, but if I’m being scrupulously honest, it really may be that I’m just the latter.)  I want to read more Russian literature – and comprehend it, ideally – and I want to “discover” a new-to-me poet, and what better place to start than the realm of Anna Akhmatova?

Akhmatova was born in 1889 near Odessa.  She grew up in Tsarskoye Selo and Kiev, attended Kiev University, and went on to become the preeminent Russian female poet.  She was a modernist who favored clarity and simplicity (thank you) in her work, and her themes ranged from love to religion to the experience of living through the Soviet regime.  She was in “official disfavor” for much of her career and her work was banned in the U.S.S.R., but she was one of the few writers who chose to remain in her homeland and bear witness to events there, rather than seek friendlier writing climates elsewhere.

For National Poetry Month 2013, I am challenging myself to read at least one Anna Akhmatova poem every day – and I’ve already started.  I bought a selection of her poems (a selection that, according to Amazon reviews, is missing some of her best work – but I’m looking for an introduction; I can always delve deeper later) and I intend to read it slowly and savor it over the course of the month.  I’ll try to pick a favorite or two to share with you all along the way, too.

Have you read Anna Akhmatova?  Which of her poems should I simply not miss?