Joseph Brodsky | Poetry Foundation

On October 22, 1987, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the Russian/American professor, writer, and poet Joseph Brodsky. He is one of my favorite poets. I am fond of creative people who represent the individual even at personal costs. He was sentenced to both a mental hospital ad a penal camp in Arkhangelsk. He was released early due mainly from a smuggled transcript and the answers he gave in his own self-defense. Eventually he was thrown out of the Soviet Union.

BRODSKY: I did work during the intervals. I did just what I am doing now. I wrote poetry.

JUDGE: That is, you wrote your so‐called poems? But what was the use of your changing jobs so often?

BRODSKY; I began work at the age of 15. I found everything interesting. I changed jobs because I wanted to find out as much as possible about life and people.

JUDGE: And what good have you done for your country?

BRODSKY: I wrote poems. That is my work.

This was also in the transcript.

JUDGE: And who said that you were a poet? Who included you among the ranks of the poets?

BRODSKY: No one. And who included me among the ranks; of the human race?

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