The fine Russian poet passed away two days ago. As with all the Russian writers, I have little sense of how lucky or unlucky she was in her English translators, but here’s a poem brought across that vast gulf by F. D. Reeve, published in The Garden: New and Selected Poetry and Prose:
Something Else
“What’s happened? For the past year I haven’t been able
to write a poem—no longer seem to know how—
have lost the knack—possess nothing tangible
but a heavy dumbness that fills my mouth.”
You’ll say, “But look, now you have a stanza.
Four lines, a quatrain, part of a whole prepared—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s second nature
for me to slap lines together, word after word.
“The hand’s the one in charge of such arrangements.
No, that’s not what I’m talking about at all.
I meant, before, when it wasn’t just verse that happened
but something else. What was it? I can’t recall.
“I wonder if it felt a sense of fear
back when it had my voice boldly misbehaving
and it laughed like laughter on my open lips
and wept like weeping anytime it wanted?”
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
John Levy !<br /> an 'oldiie goldie'<br /><br />I could "say" more but […]<br /><br />1971 was a "good" (productive year for me, too<br /><br />Eliott Coleman "drove the bus" at Hopkins<br />when their Creative Writing Seminars<br /><br />…had a life of its own… before Academia 'sucked it dry"<br /><br />as for Denise
I was introduced to Akhmadulina's poetry by Denise Levertov (who thought wonders of her work) at the 1971 Writer's Conference in The Rocky Mountains held in Boulder; I was a Poetry Fellow at that particular two-week conference and had Denise as my advisor; also at that particularly exciting conference were Mitch Goodman, Richard Hugo and Isaac Bashevis Singer, among others–Hugo was
I've known of F.D. Reeve as a poet and translator for a number of years. A poem of his is in the Walter Lowenfels anthology <i>Where Is Vietnam?</i> published in the late 1960's, probably the first time I read anything by him. I've also had on my shelf an anthology of 20th century Russian short stories that Reeve compiled and translated, has some nice work in it.<br /><br />He was
just this…<br />pretty soon<br />anybody who knew anybody<br />will be dead…<br /><br />her book! $1.99<br />shipping and handling…. $4.99<br /><br />if I say:<br /><br />"Bill Stafford wrote me re: Hexapoems and said:<br /><br />"[….]"<br /><br />I'd get a "you got a note from William Stafford? You got delusions of grander … site your internet sources"<br