Joseph Brodsky Poetry Quotations

Poetry is rather an approach to things, to life, than it is typographical production.

In the works of the better poets you get the sensation that they're not talking to people any more, or to some seraphical creature. What they're doing is simply talking back to the language itself --as beauty, sensuality, wisdom, irony --those aspects of language of which the poet is a clear mirror. Poetry is not an art or a branch of art, it's something more. If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological, indeed genetic, goal. Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a ''read,'' commits an anthropological crime, in the first place, against himself.

Poetry is what is gained in translation.

In poetic thought, the role of the subconscious is played by euphony.

Poetry is not only the most concise way of conveying the human experience; it also offers the highest possible standards for any linguistic operation.

A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre; the realization of it, for destiny.