Passwords Primeval: 20 American Poets in their Own Words by Tony Leuzzi

Author:Tony Leuzzi
Format: epub
Publisher: Perseus Books, LLC

I loved the poem “Akhmatova and I: Boleros.” What prompted this poem? It seems like there’s a great story behind it.

I have always been drawn to her. And I have always felt connected to Russia’s melancholic side. My mother is an avid reader and all of her children have names from Russian novels. Once while in St. Petersburg, Phillip Lopate was giving a reading at The Literary and Memorial Museum of Anna Akhmatova. During his reading, I heard her voice in the distance. She was singing. Of course, I don’t know her voice nor do I know if she sang. But by the end of the evening I felt very strongly that she was telling me, don’t stay in the past. The last line of the poem, when she asks me, “have you ever danced a bolero?” is intended to be a surprise question; you are not prepared to think about it, question it or try to understand it, you just trust it and go with it. That’s what I felt that evening. I trusted the encounter. That night, Lopate suggested I leave Europe and come to New York. A year later, I did. I think that changed the course of my writing life. Akhmatova’s Selected Poems is placed on my bookshelf where I can see her.

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