Wild Nights and White Nights: Dickinson's Vision of the Poet in Anna Akhmatova

Abstract

Wild Nights and White Nights:Dickinson's Vision of the Poet in Anna Akhmatova Joanna Yin (bio) While Emily Dickinson's poems were available to few people in the United States during her lifetime, the poems of the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) were well-known in her country during most of her life, despite frequent attempts by the Communist regime to suppress publication. Akhmatova was born three years after Dickinson's death in Odessa, Russia and soon moved with her family to St. Petersburg, city of the White Nights, where it never gets completely dark around the summer solstice. Although Akhmatova did not know English and there is no evidence that she read Dickinson's poems in translation, these great poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had similar ideas about where their poetry came from and where it should be directed. While both women saw the power to write poems as a divine gift, both used as the matter of their poems the familiar objects and experiences of life. They saw the process of creating poems as active, intense and totally consuming. Juxtaposing three poems by each poet will indicate similar visions of the poet as an inspiring and invigorating voice in her community. In P454, Dickinson makes it clear that God has given her the ability to create poems, yet it is a skill that she must continually practice and perfect: It was given to me by the Gods—When I was a little Girl—They give us Presents most—you know—When we are new—and small.I kept it in my Hand—I never put it down—I did not dare to eat—or sleep—For fear it would be gone— [End Page 53] I heard such words as "Rich"—When hurrying to school—From lips at Corners of the Streets—And wrestled with a smile.Rich! 'Twas Myself—was rich—To take the name of Gold—And Gold to own—in solid Bars—The difference—made me bold— This poem is written from the perspective of a grown woman who can play with the sounds of key words from her life: Gods, Girl, Gold, bold. She kept the gift in her "Hand," as a poet would a pen and paper; such treatment gives a physicality to this unnamed gift. She always carries this mysterious ability, for which she chooses to deny herself the physical activities of eating and sleeping. She discerns that the gift makes her, not what she owns, rich—the "difference" between inner and material wealth. The subtle metaphor of alchemy, in the gold at the end of the poem, emphasizes this difference. The speaker takes the name, or the metaphor, of Gold, not the gold itself. In this way she chooses the transformative power of poetry, which can create "Gold." The near rhymes of Girl / small, down / gone, school / smile give way to the final rhyme of Gold / bold. This riddle poem describes the speaker's calling as a poet. Further, it describes the careful, intense and anxious nurture of this gift. This is the last poem in fascicle 21, which contains poems that deal in different ways with transformation. Akhmatova also sees the ability to create poems as a gift from God and in "The Freshness of Words" (84) urges other poets to remember their obligations to their readers: For us to lose the freshness of words and simplicity of feeling,isn't it the same for a painter to lose—sight,or an actor—voice and movement,Or a beautiful woman—beauty? But don't try to save for yourselfthis gift sent by heaven to you:It is our fate—and we know this ourselves—to squander it, not hoard it. Walk along and heal the blind,in order to know in the heavy hour of doubt,the gloating mockery of disciplesand the indifference of the crowd In an illusion to Christ, the speaker states that the poet should not amass wealth but transform blind people into sighted people, who subsequently either ignoreor scorn the healing poet. As in Dickinson's poem, the poet [End Page 54] creates and bestows worth, which she highlights with dramatic...