Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky (May 24, 1940 - January 28, 1996), born Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Russian poet and essayist who won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature and was Poet Laureate of the United States from 1991 to 1992
1940-05-24 São Petersburgo, Rússia
1996-01-28 Brooklyn, Nova Iorque, EUA
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If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion.
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