Bella Akhmadulina died a couple of days ago. She has never been my favourite among the Russian poet gang of the '60, that included Yevtushenko, Rozhdestvensky and Voznesensky; the latter I still value the highest. Yet Akhmadulina was the only woman of the same caliber, and she definitely had a very personal feminine touch in her poetry. I tried to remember any of her poems when I saw the obituary - I typically can recite several by her male colleagues, and recalled one that was used in the Soviet cult movie of the '70s, The Irony of Fate. Speaking of what makes me cry (see a post in my bloig marathon), this poem, read in the movie while the character wanders around on a cold, dark, snowy New Year night in Leningrad, always makes me cry. It's piercing. To pay homage to Akhmadulina I searched the web for the poem. It came up immediately, only it was not at all by Akhmadulina. I am glad I checked, and it was yet another proof of the old fact: never trust your memory. For the friends who read Russian, here it is.
The final lines that make me cry read: Don't part from those you love/grow through them with your blood/and always say farewell for ever/when you are leaving for a moment. A very poor rendering, but I am not a poet.
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