Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Stray ‘Possum Café
The only comparisons in Western literature might be with the Romantics or the Beat Generation, but the Russian Silver Age poets outdazzled them in glamour and intrigue.
-Darran Anderson
We lay our scene not in Saint Petersburg
Where Anna Ahkmatova flirted and rhymed
With Gumilyov, Mandelstam, and Tsvetaeva
Among champagne, cigarettes, tears, and pearls
In the old and storied Stray Dog Café
But in a field on a December night
Where two opossums meet in quest of love
And wrangle in the leaves of intimacy
Poor strays making…art…without any fear
Of execution by the Kremlin Mountaineer
Saint Petersburg’s Stray Dog Café was a matrix for art, music, dance, and poetry from imperial Russia to the Soviet horror, and thence into the world. It almost serves as a sort of hinge between the 19th century and the 20th. Please read Darran Anderson’s professional and thus accessible article in City Journal: Anna Akhmatova’s Bravery.
I am having fun with intruding ‘possums among the Silver Age poets, but as for them, yes, they are essential. Their brilliance still shines for us and influences what we write even if we are unaware of them – and for that most of them were murdered by the mad tyranny of Communism.
