Joseph Brodsky: ‘I put my arms…’

I put my arms around these shoulders,
glanced at what lay behind her back,
and saw a displaced chair that faded
into the brightness of the wall.
The light bulb’s filament was too
intense for furniture so ripe,
which meant the corner sofa shone
yellow, though actually brown.
The table was bare, a floorboard gleamed,
the stove just darkled, a dusty frame
froze dead its landscape, only one thing
seemed animate to me: the sideboard.
But a tiny moth whirred round the room,
which broke my stare’s rigidity.
And if a ghost once did live here,
then it has left this house. It’s left it.

1962

SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS

‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement

‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine

‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian

‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review

‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter

‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer

‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18

A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.

A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.