Lev Loseff (1937–2009)

Poetry is a referential art; it has its being in culture and context. The point is not obscure cultural references or literary allusions but the language itself, passed from generation to generation and yet always spoken in an entirely new way.

This beacon of a book is more of a survey of Brodsky's work than a traditional biography. Fascinated, my mind in these darkened times began to ponder degrees of similitude with the other poet Robert Zimmerman. Aside from Nobel accolades, there's a similar trajectory of dropping out of institutional instruction, the controversies of celebrity, a dalliance with Christianity, a stunning neo-classical verve.

Those interested in the details within should plumb the muscles of Geoff's stellar review.… (mehr)