Wednesday, February 20, 2008
19.02.2008
Interpretation by dali48
Although Brodsky was strongly influenced by his Soviet experience, he had no illusions that other political systems could offer a perfect alternative. The great enemy is not space, but time! ... Man is attacked by both the past and the future! - The only thing that prevents the merging of future and past is the short time span of the present, symbolized by man and his body in “Ecloque IV: Winter” (1977)... On a personal level, Brodsky sees life as a “one-way street” - A return to what is past – a previous life, a woman – is impossible ... A complete publication of his works was only possible after the fall of the communist dictatorship in 1991 ... One consequence of Brodsky's idea that a person only moves in one direction was (see there is no going back in life - only forward, - and the final destination is known, it follows that one should not be in a hurry and rather feel one's way forward cautiously like a blind man, etc. - d.48) that he never returned to his homeland ... His final argument was: "The best part of me is already here - my poetry." ... (J. Brodsky, Article)
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
11/18/2000
Interpretation by dali48
If we equate liberal with free, value-free, we are in great danger of emptying human existence of meaning. The consequences are indifference and inner emptiness (see alternatives: Nature, faith, religion, sport, meditation, etc. – d.48) ... (S. Das)
Sin is the addiction to oneself (see egoism, fun-culture, narcissism, etc. – d.48) or the inability to recognize the unavailable (see transcendent, etc. – d.48) and to allow it into one's own existence ... The larger the mental garbage dumps, the more restricted, neurotic, depressed, resigned, passive the personality. - For the healing process, the emotional component of the doctor-patient relationship (see teacher-student, etc. – d.48) is just as important as the level of medical skill and knowledge. Biological medicine and naturopathy make antibiotics superfluous in 95% of infection cases! ... (P. Neumayer)
Swallowing mustard seeds every morning protects against stroke, improves memory and cleanses the brain ... (A. Lonicero, 17th century physician)
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
18.02.2008
Interpretation by dali48
Brodsky died of a heart attack in New York in 1996 (aged 56) ... Brodsky's parents were not allowed to travel to the West to visit him and they died in Leningrad (St Petersburg) ... I want Maria Volpert and Alexander Brodsky to accept reality under a 'foreign code of conscience' ... This will not resurrect them,
but English grammar may at least prove a better escape route from the chimneys of the state crematorium than Russian ... Later works reflected the poet's idea of a post-Christian era in which the antagonism between good and evil is replaced by moral ambiguity. Other popular themes were loss, suffering, exile and old age. Brodsky did not feel entirely safe in his new home, - even in peaceful Cape Cod, disturbing visions invaded his mind (see also P. Celan & traumas from the past that had lasting effects etc. - d.48) ... Language was for him a vehicle of civilization, superior to history, longer-lived than any state! ... In his exile and in his relationship with Leningrad, Brodsky discovered similarities with Ovid's Rome, Dante's Florence and Joyce's Dublin. The text was written in 1987 ... (P.A.C.)
He left school at the age of 15 and took jobs in a morgue, a mill, a ship's boiler room and on a geological expedition. During this time, Brodsky taught himself English and Polish and began writing poetry ... Brodsky was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1972 after serving 18 months of a 5-year sentence in a labor camp in northern Russia ... Brodsky studied under the popular Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. After his exile he moved to America, where he settled in Brooklyn and Massachusetts ... Brodsky died of a heart attack in his Brooklyn apartment in 1996.
Prose: Less Than One (1986), On Grief and Reason (1995), Watermark (1992) ... (poets.org)
Akhmatova translated the works of V. Hugo, R. Tagore, G. Leopardi and various Armenian and Korean poets and wrote memoirs of the symbolist Alexandr Blok, the artist A. Modigliani and the acmeist Osip Mandelstam ... (Pegasus Author's Calendar)
