Joseph Brodsky's greatness as a poet has to do with his expectation that life measure up to the demands of art and not vice versa. These conversations show that his friendship has an equally heightening and challenging effect upon his gifted contemporaries. Brodsky emerges as a kind of one-man ozone layer, protecting and enhancing the possibility of poetic life in our times. The conversations are really full of life and attest greatly to Joseph's high powers - to Joseph's high powers. This book is the first of its kind.It is a fascinating record of 20 conversations with poets of various nationalities about Joseph Brodsky, the 1987 Nobel Prize-winner for Literature. It combines biographical details with a new and authoritative interpretation of the poetics, style, and ideas of one of the most influential poets to emerge in post-Stalin Russia. As a poet, essayist, and playwright Brodsky is widely known and read in the English-speaking world: in 1991, he succeeded Mark Strand as Poet Laureate of the United States.This book is a superb guide to further study of Brodsky's work both for specialist scholars and general readers who are intoxicated by poetry.
It is highly readable and contains well-researched, reliable source material. It also includes Brodsky's views, some previously unpublished, on poetry and language. Every interviewed poet demonstrates an excellent knowledge of Brodsky's work and gives rich and imaginative interpretations of his major themes. Professor Polukhina sensitively contextualises this wide-ranging account of Brodsky's work. The second edition of this volume has been enlarged with two previously unpublished interviews.

Translated by: Tatiana Retivov, Chris Jones, Daniel Weissbort