- Person
- Joseph Brodsky
- Lived
- 1940–1996
- Field
- Poetry and essays
- From
- Russian-American
The story
Joseph Brodsky grew up in poverty in Leningrad and left school at fifteen. He educated himself by reading whatever he could find, later admitting that he had picked up books from anywhere, even from garbage dumps. That hunger for reading never left him. He came to see poetry not as a luxury or a pastime but, in his own description, as language's highest degree of maturity, something every person deserved to meet.
Expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972, he settled in the United States and became a citizen in 1977. He was puzzled that poetry drew far smaller audiences in America than it did in Russia. Appointed Poet Laureate in 1991, he used his opening remarks in October of that year to argue that a society which stops reading its poets is left with the poorer language of politicians, salesmen and charlatans. He proposed that inexpensive anthologies of the best American poets be placed in hotels and airports, hospitals and supermarkets, where restless, lonely or frightened people might pick them up and find comfort.
After his term ended in 1992 he looked for a way to keep that idea alive. In 1993 he and Andrew Carroll founded the American Poetry & Literacy Project, a not-for-profit organisation devoted to making poetry a more central part of American culture. Brodsky said he wanted poetry to be as ubiquitous as the nature around us, from which it draws so many of its similes, or as ubiquitous as gas stations, if not the cars themselves.
The approach was simple: put good poetry where people already are, free of charge, so that they might come across it by chance. According to the Librarian of Congress, James Billington, Brodsky's idea was taken up and thousands of poetry books were placed where people could find them out of need or curiosity.
Brodsky died in 1996, only three years after the project began, but the conviction behind it remains part of his legacy. He believed literature could change its readers for the better and strengthen the language and culture of a whole society, and he wanted that benefit to reach people who might never walk into a bookshop.
Why it matters
The project Brodsky helped found put free poetry books into the hands of people who might never have bought or borrowed one.
About Joseph Brodsky
Leningrad-born poet tried as a “social parasite” and exiled by the Soviet Union, who became a Nobel laureate in 1987 and Poet Laureate of the United States.
More about Joseph Brodsky
- Joseph Brodsky taught poetry for 15 years at Mount HolyokeJoseph Brodsky, who never finished school, became a professor of literature and taught at Mount Holyoke College for fifteen years.
- Joseph Brodsky wanted poetry in every American hotelAs US Poet Laureate from 1991, Joseph Brodsky urged that cheap poetry anthologies be placed in hotels, airports, hospitals and supermarkets.
- Joseph Brodsky defended the poet's calling at his trialCharged with 'social parasitism' in 1964, Joseph Brodsky defended his right to be a poet, and a smuggled transcript made him a symbol of free art.
Sources
- Joseph Brodsky Academy of American Poets
- Joseph Brodsky Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.