Amazon.com description: Product Description: Bella Akhmadulina is that rare postmodernist Russian poet whose weighty, original, and honed art is unencumbered by partisanship or politics. Its appreciation understandably transcends the boundaries of nations and time. Sonia Ketchian offers a vigorous yet sensitive analysis of Akhmadulina's poetry through an overview of her poetic voice and of the early poetry followed by an investigation of the insightful thematic grouping of the poems in her most significant collection to date, the remarkable Secret. In gradually unfolding the poetic speaker's secrets of the writing process in the midst of nature, this study consistently makes comparisons with the verse of key poets and also presents a thought-provoking, nuanced excursus through relevant moments in modern Russian poetry.