I Have No Use For Odic Legions

Anna Akhmatova 1889 (Odessa) – 1966 (Moscow)



I have no use for odic legions,
Or for the charm of elegiac play
For me, all verse should be off kilter
Not the usual way.

If only you knew what trash gives rise
To verse, without a tinge of shame,
Like bright dandelions by a fence,
Like burdock and like cocklebur.

An angry shout, the bracing smell of tar,
Mysterious mildew on the wall…
And out comes a poem, light-hearted, tender,
To your delight and mine.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

23 sec read
136

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABA XXXB XXBX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 408
Words 79
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova was born in 1889 in Odessa on the Black Sea coast. In 1910 she married Nikolai Gumilev, who was also a poet. He was shot as an alleged counter-revolutionary in 1921. Very little of Akhmatova's poetry was published between 1923 and 1941. After Stalin's death her poetry began to be published again. She died in 1966, in a suburb of Moscow. more…

All Anna Akhmatova poems | Anna Akhmatova Books

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