Joseph
Brodsky is a perfect example of a mediocrity that got acclaim elsewhere who
cruised to American renown. His poems in English are utter doggerel, while his
‘translations’ of his own Russian poems, while slightly better, show no
original thoughts nor experimentation with form, sound, nor idea. In short he is
a cardboard cutout of what a poet should be- at least to Academia.
Gander at his
online bio & you’ll see what I mean:
Joseph
Brodsky was born in Leningrad on May 24, 1940. He left school at the age of
fifteen, taking jobs working in a morgue, a mill, a ship's boiler room, and a
geological expedition. During this time Brodsky taught himself English and
Polish and began writing poetry. He was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1972
after serving 18 months of a five-year sentence in a labor camp in northern
Russia. According to Brodsky, literature turned his life around. "I was a
normal Soviet boy," he said. "I could have become a man of the system.
But something turned me upside down: [Fyodor Dostoevsky's] Notes from the
Underground. I realized what I am. That I am bad." He studied with the
beloved Russian poet Anna Akhmatova and, after his exile, moved to America,
where he made homes in both Brooklyn and Massachusetts.
Celebrated
as the greatest Russian poet of his generation, Brodsky authored nine volumes of
poetry, as well as several collections of essays, and received the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1987. His first book of poetry in English translation appeared
in 1973. In addition to teaching positions at Columbia University and Mount
Holyoke College, where he taught for fifteen years, Brodsky served as Poet
Laureate of the United States from 1991 to 1992. In 1993, he joined with Andrew
Carroll to found the American Poetry & Literacy Project, a not-for-profit
organization devoted to making poetry a more central part of American culture,
"as ubiquitous," in Brodsky's words, "as the nature that
surrounds us, and from which poetry derives many of its similes; or as
ubiquitous as gas stations, if not as cars themselves." Joseph Brodsky died
on January 28, 1996, of a heart attack in his Brooklyn apartment.
So, what do you suppose his poetry’s like? Before we get to the poem in
question let’s look at some of JB’s translations of himself, & why they
are examples of how banal his mind was. This is from Letter to an
Archaeologist:
Citizen, enemy, mama's boy, sucker, utter
garbage, panhandler, swine, refujew, verrucht;
a scalp so often scalded with boiling water
that the puny brain feels completely cooked.
Yes, we have dwelt here: in this concrete, brick, wooden
rubble which you now arrive to sift.
The rest of the poem is a continuation of a ‘political assessment’ of modern society’s ills. This is common from 3rd World & Iron Curtain poets, unable to divorce themselves from the ‘all art is political’ mantra that has deadened so much world ‘poetry’. Note the familiar listing, the inane imagery, & the requisite need to proclaim persecution [I am refujew!], & the even more requisite need to use a foreign word [verrucht] to show how cosmopolitan the poet is.
Here’s another snippet from the poem with the startlingly original title Elegy:
….And the hearts's distinction
from a pitch-black cavern
isn't that great; not great enough to fear
that we may collide again like blind eggs somewhere.
From the cliché of the heart as cavern, as well as being pitch-black,
to the bumbling banality of the 3rd quoted line, to the inanity of
the final line’s attempt at being startlingly original- since when are eggs
blind & in motion toward each other? & no- there is no clue elsewhere in
the poem. As my dad would have said: ‘Ach du lieber Gött in Himmel!’
Now on to the poem that this essay is about. In truth, this poem should
be in a Complete Poems as an example that the poet could do better. As
itself, well, read it, & when you’re done cringing continue to read.
Törnfallet
There
is a meadow in Sweden
where I lie smitten,
eyes stained with clouds'
white ins and outs.
And about that meadow
roams my widow
plaiting a clover
wreath for her lover.
I took her in marriage
in a granite parish.
The snow lent her whiteness,
a pine was a witness.
She'd swim in the oval
lake whose opal
mirror, framed by bracken,
felt happy, broken.
And at night the stubborn
sun of her auburn
hair shone from my pillow
at post and pillar.
Now in the distance
I hear her descant.
She sings "Blue Swallow,"
but I can't follow.
The evening shadow
robs the meadow
of width and color.
It's getting colder.
As I lie dying
here, I'm eyeing
stars. Here's Venus;
no one between us.
This is not even a coy, didn’t you know I could be sappy?, attempt at a poem. Stanzas 1 & 2 are trash, pure & simple. Stanza 3 is, at least, off-rhymed & plays off the ‘Classic’ settings. The next 3 stanzas?:
She'd swim in the oval
lake whose opal
mirror, framed by bracken,
felt happy, broken.
And at night the stubborn
sun of her auburn
hair shone from my pillow
at post and pillar.
Now in the distance
I hear her descant.
She sings "Blue Swallow,"
but I can't follow.
Ugh! & the last? ‘As I lie dying/here, I'm eyeing/stars. Here's Venus;/no one between us.’
Much too maudlin, & the last couplet?- like you did not know what they would
rhyme with Venus? In all, this poem is a 2 quatrain poem, at best:
Törnfallet
I took her in marriage
in a granite parish.
The snow lent her whiteness,
a pine was a witness.
The evening shadow
robs the meadow
of width and color.
It's getting colder.
What’s added by subtraction?
Well, the title could now refer to the woman, rather than the meadow- a little
bit of mystery. Also, the new last line is not touchy-feely, but odd- in the
best sense. It makes you wonder, if only for a few seconds before yawning. Also,
these 2 stanzas are the only 1’s whose rimes &/or clichés do not make you
want to remove you hair, follicle-by-follicle. That said, if you happen to be a
Telly Savalas fan, kick back, watch the reruns on cable, & savor the
original. Long live Mother Russia!
Final Score: (1-100):
Joseph Brodsky 's Törnfallet: 50
TOP’s
Törnfallet: 68
Return
to TOP
