A poem is made up of WORDS.

Not out of FEELINGS!

Paul Valery

A microepisode from the life of poetess A.A.Gorenko (Akhmatova).

“Love for the captivating Akhmatova,

It always ends in melancholy:

No matter how you love, no matter how you embrace,

The board will remain a board!”

Fyodor Sologub

When, as usual, “close friends” showed Akhmatova this verse, she, a talented poetess, bright, ardent, cheerful and resourceful, found nothing more stupid than to ask dejectedly:

“How does he know?”

If Akhmatova were a really talented poetess, and this implies the presence of a quick, sharp mind and the same well-hung tongue, then she could immediately respond, for example, like this:

“With a lover as passionate as Sologub, it’s not like any normal woman will become a board, but even a chimpanzee or a bear will turn into a petrified statue of Lotte’s wife.”

(Just a possible decent response to an offensive rhyme.)

But Akhmatova, with her sinusoidal oscillations between the chapel and the boudoir (according to Zhdanov), did not have enough AMPLITUDE for a witty response.

“When would you know from what kind of trash

Poems grow without shame…”

7 II 2026