Joseph (Josip) Brodsky
Poet, translator, essayist, and playwright Iosif Alexandrovich Brodsky was reviled and persecuted by officials in his native Soviet Union while the Western literary establishment lauded him as one of the finest poets working in the Russian language. From the time he began publishing poetry, both under his own name and under the anglicized name Joseph Brodsky, he aroused the ire of Soviet authorities, which was compounded by the anti-Semitic persecution he faced because of his Jewish ancestry.
Poetry by Joseph (Josip) Brodsky
Where a tin of halvah, coffee-flavored,
is the cause of a human assault-wave
by a crowd heavy-laden with parcels:
each one his own king, his own camel.
The Wise Men will unlearn your name.
Above your head no star will flame.
One weary sound will be the same–
the hoarse roar of the gale.
The shadows fall from your tired eyes
as your lone bedside candle dies,
for here the calendar breeds nights
till stores of candles fail.