As a poet I hugely admire the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. She speaks of the mind's freedom in a situation of tyranny and despair.
Anna Akhmatova
Who with a reserved voice
spoke for dead
millions. Who appointed herself.
Who prepared
with fear and the Muse
standing watch by turn.
To speak the acknowledgment.
And incredible to me
the poet given and by herself
such valid graces, such statue
bronze-lidded by the Neva
where prison doves coo.
The killed voices, flying up, out,
always.
(Collected in Lets Pretend, and Selected Poems 1977-1992 J Kazantzis)
Oil Boy
jk 2003
About Me
- judikaz
- East Sussex, United Kingdom
- In doddery old age I now live among the South Downs, after twenty years spent sprinting between London and Elsewhere, above all Key West, at the very bottom of the USA. So I know parts of the US well. A beautiful country, a fantastic people whose values, whose rulers have gone wrong, like us indulging in military revenges for violence we have helped to bring on our own pointy heads. This is not to say I don't abhore religious fanaticism with all its disasters- And my work? A poet, I've also written short stories and a novel (partly about sexual politics, partly about a truelife genocidal war in Central America), an artist too, to get some peace.. I started this blog in 2007, not knowing what to say, and I see now write this when specially cynical or in despair at our hypocrisies, or on the contrary specially want to add a poem or a picture or maybe just a bird or butterfly I've seen around the garden or the fields or the Downs. Please feel free to email me either to add comment, or if you want to find out more about my work - you can see some examples of my prints and acrylics and photos here and also on my website pages. judith@judithkazantzis.com)