Adam Kirsch on Joseph Brodsky in Tablet.

Also see Brodsky’s Nobel lecture, one of the most masterful apologies for poetry I know, and a sterling example of the nobility of humility.

I once had the pleasure of “translating” Brodsky in a workshop led by one of his proteges (and actual translators), the formidable Glyn Maxwell.

So here goes nothing…

A LITTLE SONG
by Joseph Brosky
(version by A.C. Lee)

You won’t hear
tomorrow’s tear
drop. You’ll linger
there as this dupe
daydreams its loop
around your finger.

Worthier grooms
guide gilded plumes
around fingers, and nacre
through winsome ears,
while my azure tear
dries and winds for acres.

Come dawn, display
it, if only today,
and throw it over
should it cease to amuse,
become one to lose
in a field of clover.