Poetry is an art, and throughout the world, from the beginning of civilization to the present, men have made art for many social and religious purposes, but it has always satisfied some need and desire for beauty as well. And art has always been used as a form of expression that involves visual and symbolic representation such as painting, writing, and rhyming. In addition, art defines the boundaries, means, and limits dictated by the society, and by doing so, it sheds a bright light on its performer.

Art shapes and defines the personality of an individual who produces it. It not only conveys a message to the reader from the maker but also relays inner feelings of the artist to its patrons. And this message can be relayed and presented in the form of poetry. Poetry which rhymes the everyday commonly spoken words in its own defines order, patterns, and styles which in turn constitute beauty.

One such beauty is hidden in the heart of Russian poetry, which is the Russian Statue of Liberty. A Culture so rich and complete, it bore the seeds of many artists who created beauty by their poetry. One such poet was Anna Andrevena Akhmatova. She was born in Kiev in 1889. In 1910 she was married to Gumilev, who was the leader of the Acmeist. After she divorced Gumilev, she married U.K Shileyko, but a few years later they were separated. She remained in Russia after the revolution, living in Leningrad.

Akhmatova's poetry, much of which expressed the various moods of love, reflecting her complicated and unsatisfactory relationships with number of men, including a second marriage is essentially lyrical and personal, combining classical tact with intense feeling. "Akhmatova was an exquisitely feminine poet with an accent and suggestive reserve entirely her own. Love, nostalgic yearnings and frustrations fill her intimate lyrics, all of them short and incisive." (Larvin, 239). Her poems reflect her beauty, and her image of a beautiful woman, as only she who describes it best,

A beauty from a Bryullov canvas
That kind of woman lives in novels
And can be met with on the screen...
(Akhmatova, 156)

Anna Akhmatova is one of the two greatest female poets in the history of Russian literary world. "The daughter of a merchant marine engineer she spent much of her childhood in Tsarskoye Selo, the village outside St.Petersburg, where Tsar's summer palace was located." (Hayward, 170). It has been said that her real nature of work is partly attributed to the royal environment she was raised in. "Each of her poems express a mood, synchronized with concrete setting. Their subjects are most often the many nuances of love-anticipation, playfulness, tenderness, excitement, heartache, dismay, and madness." (Yentushenko, 437).

Each individual poem is a dramatic moment frozen in time, just as her "beautiful image" is a phenomenon and has no equivalency in the world.

Akhmatova struck the hearts of the young generation during her time. Her style was so unique and new to the Russian literary world that it almost caught everyone by surprise. Her feminine style of poetry that dealt with love and emotions made her the favorite for all readers. She was the first Russian poet to create strings and cycles of love lyrics. Personal, not symbolic, non-allegorical, these truly probed and obliquely reflected almost without external detail, the whole emotional course of relationships, without being esoteric or trite. The literary critic Leonoid Grossman noted in his article "Struggle for Style" (1927) that Akhmatova had become the favorite poet of the generation whose youth fell into the turbulent second decade of our century. Akhmatova's original and severe beauty stems from her spontaneity and delicate sense of style in her poetry,

Breezes of swanning revers
In the blood, the blue above
Anniversaries are with us
Of the first days of your love.
(Akhmatova)

In her poems one can see the reincarnations of Sophia, the Eternal Feminine in Blok’s dreams. In his verses on a "Beautiful Lady" (1905), in which he created a mystical abstraction of femininity, marked him as a spokesman of Russia’s short lived symbolist movement. The "Beautiful Lady", an unearthly beloved, mediatrix between God and man, assumes certain traits of the mother of God, yet on an earthly level becomes identical with the poet’s fiancee, L.D. Mendeleena, with the poet her servant and her knight (Contemporary Authors 56). The "Beautiful Lady" was Blok’s initiation into poetry and his search for the mystery of existence began with love. Anna Akhmatova was endowed with wisdom which she constantly poured out to enrich the lives of her readers.

Hence, it is her poetry that made her beautiful. Akhmatova's reticent style, allowed her to flourish through her poetry. She poured her heart, her thoughts, and her feelings out on paper and gloriously enriched the lives of her readers.

Akhmatova's affection for poetry was apparent through her love for representing beauty. This love of "beauty" accompanied her in every step of her life. Even after the revolution she didn't lose hope, "My voice is weak but my well does not weaken, it is even better to be without love" (I. 119). Her strength is also apparent in the Evening, collection of poems. "The Evening is mainly about women abandoned who can only await for death with no promise of Paradise, in Rosary the poet is beginning to understand how to survive." (Haight, 31)

Akhmatova's work and artistic representation reached a climax during the Silver Age Period. During this time her work specially flourished in the March of 1914 when her second collection, Rosary, was published. "It made Akhmatova one of the most popular poets in Russia." (Haight, 30) It was so popular, that despite the war, it had gone into four publications by 1916.

Despite life's turmoil, Akhmatova did not give up on the notion of having order, calmness and love. "One response to the loss of love of the beloved, is an understanding of the illusory nature of partings, of the way love can transcend time and space." (Haight, 30) She writes in "Epilogue"for the "Poem Without a Hero", about her exile in Tashkent:

Our separation is illusion:
You and I cannot be parted,
My shadow is on your walls,
My reflection, in your canals,
The sound of my steps in the Hermitage Halls
Where I wandered with my love...
(Akhmatova)

The strength of the emotions between the lovers is unbelievably strong and "has transcended the normal bounds and touched on the eternal."

Because we stood together
that blessed miraculous moment
When over the Summer Garden
The rose-colored moon appeared
I do not have to stand waiting
By the hateful window,
Suffer wearisome meetings,
For love's thirst is slaked...
(Akhmatova)

Akhmatova constitutes her poetry with body and texture of real things, their particular visual, auditory, and olfactory existence. For these reasons and many more her poetry is so rich and lively with words of realistic emotions.

Akhmatova's strong beliefs in her style of writing led her to form a rival group called Poets' Guild. This group included individuals such as her husband poet, Nikolai Gumilyou, and Osip Mandelstem who jointly formed Acmeism.

Acmeism was classical precision of language, a formal elegance and aestheticism style of poetry. "They all had a revulsion against the romanticism and high-priestly pretensions." (Hayward, 246) Acmeist respected nature and their surroundings as they were. They did not feel it was necessary to change obvious and natural things in a dramatic and extreme manner. Akhmatova did not believe in using poetry as means of escaping from reality in which all mankind are confined to.

Akhmatova's poetry reflects the life that she lived. Her experiences and accomplishments have influenced the cultured poetry she is so famous for. Akhmatova's love for Russia and her patriotism shines through her poems as in "Muzhestvo", and "I am not one of those", "I Heard a Voice";

I heard a voice, within me, call...
Leave Russian, leave you sinful,
God forsaken Land, forever...
I took no notice, and calmly
I covered my ears with my hands...
(Akhmatova)

This poem does depicts true patriotism and faith fullness to one's country. Her dedication for her country also attributed to her beauty.

The natural grandeur of her poems helps the reader identify with, the topic of her poems. If there are some poems with which the reader cannot identify with, it certainly helps enlighten, and culture the reader. The experience and personal thoughts are portrayed realistically yet in a polished form to allow the reader to gain ample amount of knowledge to a certain extent about Russian politics and her own life. Even in the times that her life was not what she had hoped it would be (her son's arrest and persecution during stalin's worst purges in 1937-1938) she did not allow that to influence her writing, and "she did not grow bitter but bore her pain with dignity and endurance." (Yeutushenko, 170) The poem depicted in this paper represents Akhmatova's poetic purity. It's an honest, down to earth and something many if not everyone can relate to:

Love
Tightly coiled, like a snake it sits
In my very heart, weaving spells
or murmurs for days on end
Like a dove on my white window sill.
In the sparkle of hoarfrost a gleam,
In the carnation's slumber a hint,
And secretly, surely it leads
From all joy and peace of mind.
It can sob so seductively, sigh
In the violin's yearning prayer.
And, it happens, a stranger's smile
Fills me with a sudden fear.
(Akhmatova)

The indirect symbolism used in this poem is absolutely marvelous. Akhmatova's description of love is truly of personal experience. She knows the grip true love has ones heart and life. Love effects every aspect of one's life, "...weaving spell of murmurs for days on end..." But this effect is done in the purist of ways, because in every object and every situation she reminds us that there is an indication of this passionate feeling.

Akhmatova's encounters with love are of diverse emotion, yet in this poem she suggests this love for a partner to be. The poem suggests so by indicating carnations, having broken heart, yet it also hints at being able to feel peaceful and joyful with the fantastic emotions of love.

Love is a universal language and who better to describe this emotion than Akhmatova. She clearly touches the hearts of her readers by enabling them to feel what she has felt, a truly beautiful lady. Akhmatova's poetry shines with beautiful clarity and realism. Her love and talent she had for writing clearly made her a beautiful women. Her poetry was recognized worldwide, "In 1964 she was awarded the Italian Taormina prize and in 1965 she received and honorary doctorate from Oxford University." (Yentushenko, 170) She was truly a remarkable woman, as she herself noted before her death, "If I could step outside myself and contemplate the person that I am, I should know at least what envy is."

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Haight, Amanda. A poetic pilgrimage. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1990.

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Larvin, Janko. A Panorama of Russian Literature. University of London Press Ltd. 1973.

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny. 20th Century Russian Poetry. Silver and Steel. Edited by Todd et. al. NAN A TALESE. New York, 1993.

Matei, Calinescu. Contemporary Authors. Vol.104. New York: Campbell, 1984.

Chukovskaya, Lydia. The Akhmatova Journals. Vol.1. US: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994.

Richard, Mckane. Selected poems London Oxford. University press, New York 1996