Poetry is honey for the soul (3) - Anna Akharmatova (and Kaggsy - with a suggestion from Olga)

           Poetry is honey for the soul

Yesterday, Olga proposed to read the 130th sonnet by Shakespeare, and, mainly, to listen to it read by Alan Rickman. Today, poetry is shown as a part of the universal as Kaggsy (who is well known by her blog 

https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/)

proposes one of Anna Akhamatova' poems. 

One Russian lady, suggesting a British poet, and one British Lady, suggesting a Russian then USSR "avant-garde poet";

And each choosing one's vision of a painting that might illustrate this poem.

Kaggsy says: "I love this poem - short, effective and evocative."

Echo

The roads to the past have long been closed 

and what is the past to me now?

What is there? Bloody slabs,

or a bricked up door,

or an echo that still could not 

keep quiet, although I ask so…

The same thing happened with the echo

as with what I carry in my heart

1960

(translated by Richard McKane)

And Olga gives us the original and agrees that that the translation is very close to it, while being beautiful on its own.

Эхо В прошлое давно пути закрыты, И на что мне прошлое теперь? Что там? — окровавленные плиты, Или замурованная дверь, Или эхо, что еще не может Замолчать, хотя я так прошу... С этим эхом приключилось то же, Что и с тем, что в сердце я ношу. 1960

This is the painting with which Kaggsy would see as illustration of "Echo"

"Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" (by El Lissitzky-1919)

And it is Olga's suggestion 

Alexandr Shevchenko ("Radiant composition", 1914)

In fact, Olga comments " I think about the so-called "radiant painting" - the abstract way of painting which was "invented" at the beginning of the XX century (M.Larionov, N. Goncharova etc.) Although the poem Echo was written in 1960 ("ottepel" in the soviet history) this way of painting illustrates very well the thoughts of Akhmatova."

Thank you to Kaggsy and to both ladies for their collaboration and their look on painting art as far as this poem is concerned!