[Carl Copeland]

Thanks, Glenn!

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

I was struck by the similarities between the Russian Acmeists and the (mostly) American Imagists. … Both schools seek to render experiences using accurate, precise, photographic images and language.

You seem to be on to something. In a 1978 article, “Russian Acmeism and Anglo-American Imagism,” Elaine Rusinko wrote:

“The Imagists were reacting against the conventionalism of the Victorian poetic tradition; the Acmeists, against the ‘abstractionism’ of the Symbolists. The result however, amounted to the same thing—a turn away from conventionality, banality, and vagueness to concreteness, freshness of language and perspective, and emphasis on technique. Both Acmeists and Imagists saw their purpose as therapeutic, to bring poetry out of the ‘blurry’ nineteenth century into the ‘hardness’ of the twentieth, to use Pound’s terms.’”

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

Zenkevich describes a moonlit night in the last weeks of summer when the differences in night and day temperatures produce equinoctial electrical storms. This night the full moon illuminates the fields and the few wispy cirrus clouds portending coming storms in an otherwise clear sky. Occasional flashes of what is called “heat lightning” or “sheet lightning” in the U.S. appear, producing glints of red on the undersurfaces of the clouds.

Great meteorology lesson! I took “зарница” to be simply lightning too distant to be heard, but see that it can also refer to the phenomenon you describe. I don’t suppose cirrus clouds produce lightning, so it would still be at a distance, right?

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

The only puzzle for me was in lines 9-10 in the Russian version. The word сгущая must be modifying зарница, but I am having difficulty seeing how the “lightning” is “thickening” the oppression/weight of the “milky night.” I assume the night is “milky” because of the whitish glow of moonlight.

The imagery here puzzled me too. I first thought the brief flashes of light made the ensuing darkness seem darker, but that doesn’t work well on a “milky night,” which I can only interpret as you do. Now I suppose the lightning deepens the anxiety established earlier by the crickets.

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

Could сгущая be used in the sense of “clotting” or “stopping the flow?”

Well, “сгущенное молоко” is the Russian for “condensed milk,” but I’m not sure I’d want to lean too hard on that image.

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

I wondered (and please let me know if you think I’m way off base here) whether there was a suggestion of menstrual imagery here, too. I’m basing this on the references to the moon, milk, scarlet, and female sexuality that permeate the poem.

I hadn’t really thought about it. Could be.