To Urania: Poems [Paperback]

Joseph Brodsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1992

Combining two books of verse that were first published in his native Russian, To Urania was Brodsky's third volume to appear in English. Published in 1988, the year after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, this collection features pieces translated by the poet himself and others, as well as poems written originally in English.

Auden once characterized Brodsky as "a traditionalist . . . interested in what lyric poets of all ages have been interested in . . . encounters with nature . . . reflections upon the human condition, death, and the meaning of existence." Reading the poems in To Urania--by turns cerebral, caustic, comic, and celebratory--we appreciate firsthand a great lyric poet's variety and achievement.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An autumnal mood pervades these verses from the exiled Soviet poet and Nobel laureate. "Life is the sum of trifling motions," observes Brodsky. In ironic, well-made lyrics he broods on being middle-aged and measures the abyss between ideals and reality. The pointlessness of existence is conveyed in his description of the Earth: "A sphere in space without markers/ spins and spins." Some poems are political; "The Berlin Wall Tune" wickedly lampoons the regimented mentality that holds up the Iron Curtain. Brodsky experiments with a variety of forms: "Twenty Sonnets to Mary Queen of Scots," "Lithuanian Nocturne," a carol, philosophical dialogues, vignettes of a damp, wintry Venice, a Baltic blizzard, a Polar expedition. New poems are intermixed with the poet's translations of his verses written during the past 14 years.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Nobel Prize-winner Brodsky is one of the Soviet Union's most distinguished exiles, and evidently the experience has affected him deeply. Having "munched the bread of exile: . . . stale and warty," he knows that "every thing has a limit;/ . . . for despair, it is memory." Indeed, the sense of loss is pervasive, as is the search for permanence. In the remarkable "Lithuanian Nocturne," which finds the poet's specter crossing oceans to visit his confrere Thomas Venclova, Brodsky may see poetry's realm as "the kingdom of air," but his poems are in fact dense with accumulated detail, as if to reassure him that "nothing has changed here." Brodsky's first collection since A Part of Speech ( LJ 8/80 ) , this volume contains previously uncollected works dating from 1968 (e.g., the 1400-line "Gorbunov and Gorchakov") but written mostly in this decade. Essential. Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 174 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (April 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374523339
• ISBN-13: 978-0374523336
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,415,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Speaks to hearts today, April 2, 2002

By 

Cry the Name (this temple of silence and stars) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Urania: Poems (Paperback)

Joseph Brodsky is a poet of insight and wisdom. Sometimes difficult, but always thought provoking, Brodsky does not leave the reader unaffected. To Urania contains what is possibly my favorite Brodsky poem, "Lithuanian Nocturne." One line in particular haunts my memory:

"Avenging, its permanence, a
place stuffs time with a tenant, a lodger--
with a life-form, and throws up the latch."

Though sometimes distant, To Urania manages to do what the best of poetry does...it reaches across time and culture to speak to hearts today.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A treasure, March 10, 2007

By 

Jim (Manila) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Urania: Poems (Paperback)

I came to Joseph Brodsky after reading a selection of his poems in Yevtushenko's anthology, 20th Century Russian Poetry.
To Urania is Brodsky's book of poems I treasure most. These are poems of memory and longing - an illustration of how places and people leave imprints and scars in an exile's soul (read mind or body,if you like). Though most poems are translations (including many by Brodsky himself), they manage to convey their meaning in the most concrete terms. Above all, the poems are a record of how adversity can never extinguish hope.