Joseph Brodsky: Rising Above Adversity

Following are a few lines from two different poem which exemplify the poet’s craft at his best.

The North buckles metal

The North buckles metal, glass it won't harm;
teaches the throat to say, "Let me in."
I was raised by the cold that, to warm my palm,
gathered my fingers around a pen.

Freezing, I see the red sun that sets
behind oceans, and there is no soul
in sight. Either my heel slips on ice, or the globe itself
arches sharply under my sole.

http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~safonov/bro...

This poem reveals how the freezing cold affects metal, but leaves glass untouched. This could be a metaphor concerning how one lives life. As one faces the struggles of survival, one learns to bend, and even sometimes decay. On the other hand, as one learns from experiences, a person rises above the struggles, which no longer affect the person.

There is the sense of isolation portrayed; furthermore, there is imagery of how isolation is refuted by forcing one to voice the right to be included. That inclusion is not based upon joining a team for fun: it is based upon joining the human race for survival. These lines also reveal how such coldness spawn the opportunity for one to write.

As serious as Brodsky’s issues present themselves, so does the poet’s sense of comedy. The ending lines leave the reader with the picture of the narrator slipping on ice, or in a bigger sense, the “globe itself arches sharply”. There is the idea of being off balance and that causes both a smile and a frown.

This next poem’s imagery easily explains how west becomes east and how something as common as a cough can be passed on from one to another, thousands of miles away from each other.

If anything’s to be praised

If anything's to be praised, it's most likely how
the west wind becomes the east wind, when a frozen bough
sways leftward, voicing its creaking protests,
and your cough flies across the Great Plains to Dakota's forests

http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~safonov/bro...

It has been written about Joseph Brodsky that “…his own life was an example of poetry saving a soul from tyranny.” http://www.thenewrepublic.com/100900/kir...

Joseph Brodsky was the fifth Poet Laureate of the United States from 1991 – 1992, He died of heart attack on January 28, 1996, in New York.

For more in-depth information about the poet, check out the following website: http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates...

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