“Anna’s Hut at Komarovo” by Trina Gaynon
Snow melting on the roof and damp from Pike Lake
bring chunks of plaster down on our heads,
a small matter with Vivaldi on the phonograph
and the room filled with cigarette smoke and poets
who drop their new work on the table before me.
Memorization no longer necessary, reciting is out of style.
When I’m alone, pine trees drift into the room,
driven by winds of the past and the future.
They shadow work on the poem that rises and falls
in me, as a glacial lake laps at its beaches.
Look for the candles that sputter in my window.
I welcome those who venture back across the Lethe.
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Trina Gaynon Artist Statement:
Long have I dreamed about having a writing retreat. late in her life, Anna Akhmatova had in a dacha at Komarovo, where she had many visitors. The hut was not in idyllic condition. I wondered how she felt there, after long years of sharing her living and working space.
Trina Gaynon volunteers with a literacy program. In the past she volunteered for
WriteGirl, an organization in L. A. which provides workshops and mentors for girls in high
school. She moves between writing sonnets, a way of exploring what she has to say, and
experimental work, a way of exploding into what she needs to say. She is curretnly editing an
anthology of poems inspired by Anna Akhmatova.
Her poems appear in The Great Gatsby Anthology, The San Diego Poetry Annual, Saint
Peter’s B-list, Obsession: Sestinas for the 21st Century, A Ritual to Read Together, Phoenix
Rising from the Ashes, Bombshells, Knocking at the Door, and several WriteGirl anthologies,
also in numerous journals including Natural Bridge, Reed and the final issue of Runes. Her
chapbook An Alphabet of Romance is available from Finishing Line Press.
http://tdgaynon.webs.com
