Bella Akhmadulina (b. 1937) is a gifted young poetess. She was educated at the Gorky Literary Institute where she studied together with Yevgeni Yevtushenko and Robert Rozhdestvensky, A collection of her poetry came out in 1962. She also writes stories and film scripts and acts in the cinema. In her graceful, plastic poetry she responds with great subtlety of feeling to people’s happiness, suffering and hopes. Her verse is like exquisite filigree ivork, its intricate patterns and modulations reflecting the subtlest shades of feeling and mood, sometimes as light as n fleeting sigh.