Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky; 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 May 1940
CountryUnited States of America
education inspiration book
Man is what he reads.
literature form treason
Bad literature is a form of treason.
love light sound
On the whole, love comes with the speed of light; separation, with that of sound.
school years russia
In Russia, the moment a person opens his mouth you know where he's from. There's the uniformity of experience of an individual in Russia. When you're about 7 years old you get into school and you get put in this factory or this bureaucracy or whatever. The options are computable. Here it's tremendously diverse.
believe paper flesh
I am losing my Soviet citizenship, I do not cease to be a Russian poet. I believe that I will return. Poets always return in flesh or on paper.
reading grief believe
Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe ... that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens.
death almighty proof
Perhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die.
long literature affair
As long as the state permits itself to interfere in the affairs of literature, literature has the right to interfere with the affairs of state.
want confession almighty
In the end, like the Almighty Himself, we make everything in our image, for want of a more reliable model; our artifacts tell more about ourselves than our confessions.
poetry-is translations
Poetry is what is gained in translation.
files ifs
Every life has a file, if you will.
appreciation cousin relatives-and-friends
Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family. Even your super weirdo creep cousin.
men class village
I was quite happy in Arkhangelsk.Subsequently, I was sent to a village. I liked it in its own way because it sounded to me very much like the tradition of a hired man in any world-class poem. That's what I was, a hired man. I was working for a collective farm.
attitude patriotism language
For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.