5 Poems by Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996)

"There are no depths. Appearance is the summary of phenomena." -Joseph Brodsky [1]

Joseph Brodsky was born May 24, 1940 in Leningrad. His father was a photographer and his mother was an interpreter. Brodsky said he grew up surrounded by anti-semitism. [2] He worked a variety of jobs in varied industries including in a milling machine factory, in a morgue at a prison, in hospitals, and on geological expeditions. [3] He first became interested in poetry at 19 when he picked up a book of poems by Evgeny Abromovich Baratynsky. [4]

A newspaper in Leningrad labeled Brodsky's poetry "pornographic and anti-Soviet" in 1963. He was put in a mental institution and finally arrested for "parasitism" and put on trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years hard labor, however his sentence was shortened to eighteen months. [5]

He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and settled in Ann Arbor Michigan with the help of W. H. Auden. [6] He became a US citizen in 1977 and US poet laureate in 1991. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1987. [7]

Brodsky was reported in the New York Times to have been ill for many years before his death at 55 on January 28, 1996 from a heart attack. [8]

==========================
Text of poems read
Odysseus to Telemachus
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15205

I threw my arms about those shoulders
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/24508-Joseph-Brodsky-I-threw-my-arms-about-those-s...

A Song
http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/joseph_brodsky_2004_9.pdf

Letter to an Archaeologist
http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/joseph_brodsky_2004_9.pdf

I Sit by the Window
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/joseph_brodsky/poems/4032

==========================
Sources and Notes
[1] Nick Watson interview with Joseph Brodsky in The Argonist magazine 1996
http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Brodsky%20interview.htm

[2] Wikipedia: Joseph Brodsky from New York Times, January 29, 1996
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Brodsky

[3] [4] Wikipedia: Joseph Brodsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Brodsky


[5] [6] [7] [8] York Times, January 29, 1996 Joseph Brodsky Exiled Poet Who Won Nobel, Dies at 55
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07E6DE1039F93AA15752C0A96095...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Joseph
• Brodsky
• Odysseus
• to
• Telemachus
• sit
• by
• the
• Window
• Letter
• an
• Archaeologist
• threw
• my
• arms
• about
• those
• shoulders
• Song
• Poems
• Being
• Read
• late
• 20th
• Century
• poetry
• james
• carew
• early
• 21stCentury
• PoemsBeingRead

[PoemsBeingRead]

@keanghiero Thank you Kean

[PoemsBeingRead]

@Idlinfarm Thanks Ida

[Idlinfarm]

Thank you. I'm glad to hear these poems.

[keanghiero]

Nice, thanks, I like it.

Best wishes

All the best

Kean

A