5 Poems by Joseph Brodsky

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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/pr... • • I threw my arms about those shoulders • http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/24508-Jose... • • A Song • http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pd... • • Letter to an Archaeologist • http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pd... • • I Sit by the Window • http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/... • • ========================== • Sources and Notes • [1] Nick Watson interview with Joseph Brodsky in The Argonist magazine 1996 • http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Brods... • • [2] Wikipedia: Joseph Brodsky from New York Times, January 29, 1996 • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_B... • • [3] [4] Wikipedia: Joseph Brodsky • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_B... • • • [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...

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