The Trackless Woods

Today, because of the terrible events in Ukraine I was wondering if I had any books or music by Ukrainian people. I remembered that I had a book of poetry by Anna Akhmatova and an album by Iris Dement based on Anna's poems. I am listening to the album now and I thought I would dust off a story I wrote about Anna exactly three years ago.

 .....................Do not despair, because Spring is on the way. I ventured outside today.  While I was out there, I was pleased to see the clematis is in bloom. It is raining now, and I am in the relative warmth of my kitchen. I have just put the oven on to heat the place up a bit. I’m listening to The Trackless Woods by Iris DeMent. I discovered Iris about 20 years ago when Mike Harding played her a lot on his radio show. The first time I ever saw Kate Rusby she sang Our Town and said Iris was her favourite singer. I bought Infamous Angel which is still one of my favourite albums, later In My Life and Sing The Delta when it came out in 2012. 

About three years ago I bought The Trackless Woods. On this album Iris has put music to the poems of the Ukrainian poet Anna Akhmatova which were translated into English by Babette Deutsch and Lyn Coffin. Iris and her husband Greg Brown adopted a five-year-old Russian girl in 2005 which is why I think Iris must have taken an interest in Russian poetry. Anna Akhmatova was born at Bolshoy Fontan, a resort suburb of the Black Sea port of Odessa in 1889. Her father Andrey Antonovich Gorenko was a Ukrainian naval engineer, and her mother Inna Erazmovna Stogova was a descendant from the Russian nobility of Kyiv, which is where Anna studied law at University before moving to St Petersburg to study literature and become a poet. 

Anna died in 1966 after a terribly difficult life, living through two world wars and the tyranny of the Stalinist purges. Her first husband was executed, and her common law second husband died in the Gulags. Her son spent many years there as well, and his only crime was being the son of his parents. She herself was declared ‘An enemy of the state’. I notice Trump has used that term in recent years, this is how fascism begins. This treatment meant that she was barred from the Writers Union which resulted in her having no income and left dependent on the kindness of friends. Many of her friends were executed or sent into exile. She could have left Russia, but she chose to stay and be a witness to what was happening to her country.

When I first got the album, I thought I ought to buy a book of Anna Akhmatova's poetry to read in order to understand her better. I found a second-hand ex-library hardback copy of Way Of All The Earth translated by D.M Thomas published in 1979. I have to confess that I haven’t read all of it yet.

The album isn’t a bit like Iris's early recordings. It is a more mature piano based sound without the Country influences.  I like it though. Iris kept photos of Anna on her piano probably to inspire her while composing the melodies. The piano is very much to the fore. Iris is accompanied by Richard Bennett and Leo Kottke. I couldn’t possibly talk you through every track because the real beauty is in the words and everybody would have their own interpretation of those. Iris’s voice is wonderful though and to me perfectly suits the melancholy of the poems. 

Iris DeMent.

I have put a video on this blog page of  Anna reciting her poem called The Muse. This rare recording from the early 1960s is included on Iris's album.