Santa Fe Poetry Broadside... Issue #4, October, 1998

Innokenty Annensky was a teacher of literature and Classics at upper schools in Petersburg, Kiev, and Tsarskoe Selo at the turn of the century. Along with extensive translation of the plays of Euripides, Annensky wrote several collections of poetry which comprise not only one of the most important oeuvres of Russian Symbolism, but also one of the transitional documents between Symbolism and the Acmeist movement of the early 20th century. While Symbolism is characterized by a non-rational connection between aesthetics and ethics, and a clear sense that human life and awareness are transitory and excruciating states, Acmeism fights for the "now," seeking to wrest art from the brutality and banality of life. Annensky's skeptical, disciplined, unflinching aesthetic and insistence on art's ability to transform reality makes him the artistic father of Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Tsvetayeva, and Gumiliev.
              --Devon Miller-Duggan, 1998

poems in the broadside... Night Stanzas -- On the Water -- Canzone -- First Fortepiano Sonnet -- At the Grave -- Fiery Trefoil -- Trefoil of warning

The translators:

Devon Miller-Duggan translated these poems from the Russian with Nancy Tittler. Miller-Duggan teaches English and Comparative Literature at the University of Delaware. Tittler teaches Russian at SUNY Binghamton. "Night Stanzas" first appeared in The Atavist.

Devon also has three poems in Broadside issue #37: The Woman Who Was Afraid of the Dark -- The Idea of Progress -- Nacreous