Selected Poems: 1968-1996

Description

Self-educated, intense, impulsive and unmoored, Joseph Brodsky emerged in mid-century Russia as a poetic virtuoso, recognized by such greats as Anna Akhmatova as their worthy heir. He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972. Together, the poems in this volume unfold the project that, as Brodsky saw it, the condition of exile presented- 'to set the next man - however theoretical he and his needs may be - a bit more free'. This edition includes poems translated by Derek Walcott, Richard Wilbur and Anthony Hecht, and poems written in English or translated by the author himself. It surveys Brodsky's tumultuous life and illustrious career, and presents many of the poems that secured his reputation as one of the century's major voices.

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) went to the United States in 1972 as an involuntary exile from the Soviet Union. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 and served as poet laureate of the United States in 1991 and 1992. He was the author of three books of poems in English, six books of poems in Russian, and three books of essays in English. Ann Kjellberg is the literary executor of Joseph Brodsky.