The poetic craft of Bella Akhmadulina

Abstract

Sonia 1. Ketchian. The Poetic Craft of Bella Akhmadulina. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. viii, 248 pp. Illustrations. $32.50, cloth. To date this is the only book-length study on one of the most prominent and enigmatic poets in contemporary Russia. The origins of Akhmadulina's poetry are inextricably linked to the cultural mythology of the 1960s, a period of relative creative freedom known as the Thaw. Succeeding the years of Stalinist terror, this period witnessed a mighty revival of lyric poetry, unprecedented since the revolutionary years, and Akhmadulina, together with her brilliant peers and brothers-in-verse Evtushenko and Voznesensky, gave dramatic public readings before enormous audiences in packed stadiums and concert halls. With her striking appearance, foreign-sounding name, exotic Tartar-Italian genealogy, and complex, overtly apolitical verse, Akhmadulina exuded an aura of mystique and sophistication, and soon became an icon for her generation. Ketchian's personal acquaintance with the legendary poetess and her intimate knowledge of Russian literature make her a uniquely qualified interpreter of Akhmadulina's art. She guides the reader through intricate and esoteric imagery and linguistic nuances until all the pieces fit into a single coherent verbal picture. Although the book's main focus is the 1983 collection, The Secret, Ketchian also surveys Akhmadulina's earlier verse, demonstrating the organic continuity between different stages of her poetic development. As is the case with almost every postmodern poet (or, perhaps, any true poet), Akhmadulina's primary preoccupation in The Secret is with her own creative process. Ketchian provides us with a key to Akhmadulina's metapoetic secret, which consists essentially in a belief that verse arises from the beauty of nature. However, the twentieth-century poetess is worlds apart from the Romantics, who also regarded nature as the source of inspiration. As Ketchian's insightful analysis demonstrates, the traditional theme of the poet's communion with nature is complicated and transformed in Akhmadulina's verse by her postmodern sensibility, urban experience, nostalgic awareness of cultural heritage, and intense spiritual life. In Akhmadulina's poetry, nature is understood in very broad terms, not only as the beauty of fields and plants, but also as the dynamic of the seasons and times of day, and the vast spaces of the universe. Ketchian scrupulously unravels the paradigm of the persona's creative process, closely intertwined with the natural cycle. Summer is a period of intense travel, particularly to the bright and exotic region of the Caucasus, a time of accumulating impressions and emotions. …