Hi all,

 

just wanna share some news and experiences with you. First of all, I've moved to a new appartment this week. Actually, I have a bunch of my stuff left at the perivous place but I am packing and taking them to the new apparment during this week. A good friend of mine who's got a car promised to help me with it. Very nice of him, huh?:) Yesterday, it was the first night at the new place. I'll be living with two nice girls whose names are - are you ready? - Olyas:)) Moreover, they are blond, slim and very social!:) We went to bed very late, couldn't stop talking and having fun! And this morning, all of us overslept!:)) Fortunately, I came to the office in time. Hope they did so too.:)

 

I'll add more info later - have to work;))

 

Have a nice time and take care! Stay in touch! I love you all!:)

 

Yours sincerely,

Olya

It's been a long while since I last updated my blog. Things change... Now I have moved to the other town, found a full-time job of an office-manager/interpreter. I like my job and hope to continue working there after my probation period is over. I haven't got access to Internet from the flat I rent there that's why I seldom check this site. Anyway, I gonna change it to better:) And though I don't have much time to write anything outstanding:)), I at least have put my new picture here. Hope you'll find it outstanding enough;))

 

Gonna write next blog soon.

 

Have a nice day and take care,

 

Olga

Joseph Brodsky – Biography

Joseph Brodsky was born in 1940, in Leningrad, and began writing poetry when he was eighteen. Anna Akhmatova soon recognized in the young poet the most gifted lyric voice of his generation. From March 1964 until November 1965, Brodsky lived in exile in the Arkhangelsk region of northern Russia; he had been sentenced to five years in exile at hard labor for "social parasitism," but did not serve out his term.

Four of Brodsky's poems were published in Leningrad anthologies in 1966 and 1967, but most of his work has appeared only in the West. He is a splendid poetic translator and has translated into Russian, among others, the English metaphysical poets, and the Polish emigre poet, Czeslaw Milosz. His own poetry has been translated into at least ten languages. Joseph Brodsky: Selected Poems was published by Penguin Books in London (1973), and by Harper & Row in New York (1974), translated by George L. Kline and with a foreword by W.H. Auden. A volume of Brodsky's selected poems translated in French has been published by Gallimard; a German translation, by Piper Verlag; and an Italian translation, by Mondadori and Adelphi. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux published Brodsky's acclaimed collection, A Part of Speech, in 1980.

On June 4, 1972, Joseph Brodsky became an involuntary exile from his native country. After brief stays in Vienna and London, he came to the United States. He has been Poet-in-Residence and Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, Queens College, Smith College, Columbia University, and Cambridge University in England. He currently is Five College Professor of Literature at Mount Holyoke College. In 1978, Brodsky was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters at Yale University, and on May 23, 1979, he was inducted as a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1981, Brodsky was a recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's award for his works of "genius".

In 1986, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux published Less Than One, a collection of Mr. Brodsky's essays on the arts and politics, which won the National Book Critic's Award for Criticism.

In 1988 Farrar, Straus, and Giroux published a collection of his poetry, To Urania, and in 1992 a collection of essays about Venice, Watermark.

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1987, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1988

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

 

Joseph Brodsky died on January 28, 1996.

 

I've always declared: life is a game...

I've always declared: life is a game.
With caviar secure, fish won't be claimed.
The Gothic style, as a school, will win
protruding out, avoiding sting.
               I sit by the window, watching fences.
               I loved a couple, yet intensely.

I believed that wood was a part of stack.
That the knee is ample -- the lass won't lack.
Since the era raises the dust which tires,
Russian eyes enjoy Estonian spires.
               I sit by the window. I've washed my cup.
               I was happy here, but the time is up.

I wrote: the bulb contains the floor's dread.
That there is no verb for love as an act.
Euclid didn't know that descending on conus
the thing is not zero, it's gaining the Khronos.
               I sit by the window, recalling the past.
               At times I smile. At times feel disgust.

I said that the leave destroyed the bud.
The seed falling into the nasty mud
won't have a shoot. That glade and meadow
are like masturbation, by nature endowed.
               I sit by the window, grasping my knee,
               in my corpulent shadow's company.

My song wants a tune. It's not of a sort
you can sing together. And in reward
I should not expect someone's leg
on my shoulders. And I don't beg.
               I sit by the window dim. Like a train,
               the sea is roaring behind the curtain.

A second-rate era's citizen, I'm glad
to admit my best thoughts to be second-rate.
I present them to the future mob
as an experience in fighting SOB.
               I sit in the dark. And it is no worse
               in my room than the dark outdoors.

1971 (2003)

 

Russian Version:

 

 Л. В. Лифшицу

     Я всегда твердил, что судьба -- игра.
     Что зачем нам рыба, раз есть икра.
     Что готический стиль победит, как школа,
     как способность торчать, избежав укола.
     Я сижу у окна. За окном осина.
     Я любил немногих. Однако -- сильно.

     Я считал, что лес -- только часть полена.
     Что зачем вся дева, раз есть колено.
     Что, устав от поднятой веком пыли,
     русский глаз отдохнет на эстонском шпиле.
     Я сижу у окна. Я помыл посуду.
     Я был счастлив здесь, и уже не буду.

     Я писал, что в лампочке -- ужас пола.
     Что любовь, как акт, лишена глагола.
     Что не знал Эвклид, что, сходя на конус,
     вещь обретает не ноль, но Хронос.
     Я сижу у окна. Вспоминаю юность.
     Улыбнусь порою, порой отплюнусь.

     Я сказал, что лист разрушает почку.
     И что семя, упавши в дурную почву,
     не дает побега; что луг с поляной
     есть пример рукоблудья, в Природе данный.
     Я сижу у окна, обхватив колени,
     в обществе собственной грузной тени.

     Моя песня была лишена мотива,
     но зато ее хором не спеть. Не диво,
     что в награду мне за такие речи
     своих ног никто не кладет на плечи.
     Я сижу у окна в темноте; как скорый,
     море гремит за волнистой шторой.

     Гражданин второсортной эпохи, гордо
     признаю я товаром второго сорта
     свои лучшие мысли и дням грядущим
     я дарю их как опыт борьбы с удушьем.
     Я сижу в темноте. И она не хуже
     в комнате, чем темнота снаружи.

Hello there,

I was going to add a new entry last night, but it was too late to turn on the pc. So I just tried to remember all my thoughts I wanted to share till next morning.  Seems like I’ve managed with it successfully.

 

I was so upset yesterday. Nothing bad happened. I had realized how old my private students are. It may sound funny for you. But if you felt the situation the way I did you would also imbued with such emotions. Look, I’m 21 and I’ve been giving private classes of English for about three years now (please, do not laugh too loud in case you come across mistakes in my writing – it’s rather difficult to speak English perfectly living in a non-English-speaking country). Thus, I have private students of different age: from 7 to 17. Three of them have left the school this year.

 

You know, I look younger. Most of people say I look like I’m 18-20 years old. Thought recently more and more people say I’m older than I look like after talking with me for a while. Nice to hear that, indeed.

 

Recurring to what I was telling you, my students and I have not got a big disparity in years. Nevertheless, they always call me by my first and middle name, in a respectful way. And, in spite of the fact that they are teenagers, I consider them as kids, my students. The thing that in some way shocked me yesterday was that one of these older students, a 17-year-old girl suggested to be on informal terms with her, i.e. to address each other as ‘ты’. We interrupted classes for a while because she’s preparing for her entrance exams now. And every now and then we meet each other when walking out in the downtown.  We come up to each other to say hello and sometimes I feel confused whether I should introduce her to my friends or not. Actually, the idea that it would sound more naturally if we could talk in a less formal way came across my mind before but I’m so used to them calling me Olga Nikolayevna that I just can’t imagine them calling me Olya! J Of course, I agreed with her and let her talk in an informal way to me. Yet, she keep calling me in a formal way from time to time, through habit.