Hence all rhymes – A tribute to Joseph Brodsky
Edited by Specimen
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In Memory of Joseph Brodsky
It could be said, even here, that what remains of the self
Unwinds into a vanishing light, and thins like dust, and heads
To a place where knowing and nothing pass into each other, and through;
That it moves, unwinding still, beyond the vault of brightness ended,
And continues to a place which may never be found, where the unsayable,
Finally, once more is uttered, but lightly, quickly, like random rain
That passes in sleep, that one imagines passes in sleep.
What remains of the self unwinds and unwinds, for none
Of the boundaries holds—neither the shapeless one between us
Nor the one that falls between your body and your voice. Joseph,
Dear Joseph, those sudden reminders of your having been—the places
And times whose greatest life was the one you gave them—now appear
Like ghosts in your wake. What remains of the self unwinds
Beyond us, for whom time is only a measure of meanwhile
And the future no more than et cetera, et cetera . . . but fast and forever.
Published May 19, 2026
© New Yorker, 1996
© Blizzard of One, 1998
© New Selected Poems, 2007
© Select Poems, 2014
Few poets lived by language in such a thorough and relentless way as Joseph Brodsky. Almost fanatically, frantically so. Ethically, insofar as ethics itself is mothered by aesthetics. Insofar as “language that is intolerant, and indifferent in a week to a beautiful physique, worships language and forgives anyone by whom it lives” Brodsky is still present, physically and linguistically so, thirty years after he disappeared in the dead of winter, on January 28th 1996, for all those who met him, textually or in person. Talking, standing next to a fridge or walking fast through a cloud of cigarette smoke.
Hence, few poets are so alive in other poets’ verse, are addressed so often as if present, because of their presence, in other poets’ poems. On the day of his birth, May 24th, Specimen publishes and translates some of these, conjuring Joseph’s presence through the verse, and the absence, of this most unique family of good poets, good friends, Seamus, Derek, Adam and Mark among them.
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