rome

the roman walls sprawling up from the right banks of the tiber have arranged themselves, like lips: into the instruments of a language. at the crest of the hill, overlooking the rest of rome, the american academy hosted a distinct constellation of asterisks, all decorated and all implicated, in honor of joseph brodsky. adam zagajewski, derek walcott, mary jo salter, roberto calasso, boris khersonskii (?), and mark strand read joseph's poetry out loud inside the villa aurelia for the academy's fellows and distinguished guests.

adam zagajewski, on joseph's trials of soviet persecution:
he was young and beautiful, and he was a genius and he knew it.

derek walcott, on what joseph wanted out of his translators:
he wanted a meter, not pentameter, and he was changing the english language. idiots couldn't see what he was doing [in more than words].

mark strand, on legacy:
i don't think they read joseph anymore--or me, or derek, or anybody.