Водою пахнет резеда Water smells of mignonette
И яблоком – любовь. And apple — of love
Но мы узнали навсегда, But we all know,
Что кровью пахнет только кровь. That blood only smells of blood.
~1934
Anna Akhmatova(1889-1966) was an influential Russian poet and translator. Her collections include Evening (1912), Rosary (1914), White Flock (1914) Plantain (1921), em>Anno Domini MCMXXI (1922) and the posthumous Poems of Akhmatova (1967), Selected Poems (1976), Twenty Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1985), Selected Poems (1989) and The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1990). Her work continues to be widely translated. Painting by Natan Altman.
Teresa Mei Chuc was born in Saigon, Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. under political asylum with her mother and brother shortly after the Vietnam War, while her father remained in a Vietcong “re-education” camp for nine years. Her poetry appears in journals such as EarthSpeak Magazine, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Hypothetical Review, Kyoto Journal, The Prose-Poem Project, The National Poetry Review, Rattle, Verse Daily and in anthologies such as New Poets of the American West (Many Voices Press, 2010), With Our Eyes Open: Poems of the New American Century (West End Press, 2014), and Mo’ Joe (Beatlick Press, 2014). Red Thread is her first full-length poetry collection. Teresa’s second poetry collection, UNTITLED SPACE, is forthcoming from FootHills Publishing this year.
