Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), one of the great Russian poets of the 20th century, had a career spanning 55 years. Her early, startlingly original love lyrics won her almost instant fame, but she went on writing equally strong poetry through WWI, the Revolution, the Stalin years, WWII, and the Cold War. Many of her poems with political content have not been published in the USSR. The poems in this selection are from her early books; Zh 113 is from White Flock (1917); Zh 234 is from Plantain (1921); and Zh 244, 255, and 290 are from Ano Domini MCMXXI (1922).