'A yardstick for the language'

 “Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then as a yardstick for the language.” – Joseph Brodsky

Born in Leningrad on this date in 1940, Brodsky started writing at age 15.   Published by the underground journal Sintakss (Syntax) before he was out of high school, his early works got him in deep trouble as being “anti-Soviet” and by his late 20s the Soviet government had him “confined” to a mental institution and then expelled from his homeland. 

 

Then, thanks to the help of poet W.H. Auden, he came to live in the United States where he had a long and eventful writing career leading, ultimately, to being named for the Nobel Prize.

 

Besides writing, he taught poetry and creative writing at Yale, Columbia and Michigan before becoming a full-time faculty member at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts where he taught until his death in 1996.

 

 His 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded "for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.”   In 1991, he was appointed United States Poet Laureate, the first naturalized citizen to be so honored.  America, he said, was a breath of fresh air that renewed his spirit and belief in his fellow human beings.

 

“Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family,” he advised.  “Know how delightful it is to find a friend in everyone you meet.”