ANNA AKHMATOVA Selected Poems <i> translated by D.M. Thomas (Penguin Books: $7.95) </i>

Anna Akhmatova (the literary pseudonym of Anna Andreevna Gorenko, 1889-1966) is a beloved member of the pantheon of Russian poets. This is the first collection of D. M. Thomas’ fluid translations. Akhmatova’s poems, particularly the early ones, are intimate and colloquial in their language; this deeply personal style earned her the suspicion of the young Soviet regime. She ceased to write for long periods of time, but in the late “Poem Without a Hero,” she writes of being misunderstood:

My editor showed displeasure,

Grumbled: ‘It’s got to be simpler!

You read, and when you’ve

finished

You still don’t know who’s in

love

With whom, who met and why,

who

Lived and who died, who’s

Author and who’s hero. And

Ideologically it’s outmoded,

This carrying-on about a poet

And a swarm of ghosts.’