#joseph brodsky
Seamus Heaney, Pura López Colomé, and Hans van de Waarsenburg: IN MEMORIAM JOSEPH BRODSKY, The Maastricht International Poetry Nights, 2000
JOSEPH BRODSKY
Don’t leave your room, don’t commit that fateful mistake.
Why risk the sun? Just settle back at home and smoke.
Outside’s absurd, especially that whoop of joy,
you’ve made it to the lavatory–now head back straight away!
Don’t leave your room, don’t go and hail a taxi, spend,
the only space that matters is the corridor, its end
a ticking meter. She comes by, all ready for caressing,
mouth open? Kick her straight out, don’t even start undressing.
Don’t leave your room, just say you have the influenza.
A wall and table are the most fascinating agenda.
Why leave this place? Tonight you will come home from town
exactly as you were, only more beaten down.
Don’t leave your room. Go dance the bossa nova,
shoes without socks, your body bare and coat tossed over.
The hallway holds its smells of ski wax and boiled cabbage,
writing even one letter more is excess baggage.
Don’t leave your room. Do you still look handsome?
Just ask the room… Incognito ergo sum,
as petulant Substance once remarked to Form.
It’s not exactly France outside. Don’t leave your room!
Don’t be an idiot! You’re not the others, you’re an exclusion!
Choreograph the furniture, essay wall-paper fusion.
Make that wardrobe a barricade. The fates require us
to keep out Cosmos, Chronos, Eros, Race and Virus!
1970
.
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Ph:DanSpb
inst: @danspbway
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Joseph Brodsky on the balcony of his rental, Leningrad 1963
Аn animated video 360, based on the poem by Joseph Brodsky, where you can follow the life of a tugboat in the port of St. Petersburg.
to those, who are not with us anymore
Directed by Polina Minaeva, St. Petersburg pictured by Vasily Krasnikov
Music by Anton Alekseevsky
Voice talent Pavel Artemiev
I’ve got to know and love Brodsky poetry because of my aunt. This poem always made me cry. Crying, I had absolutely no time to realize this project, thought the idea of creating a 360 video haunted me for a long time. The summer of 2020 was especially hard, many nearest people passed away, so did my aunt. I felt that’s time for this project dedicated to the theme of leaving.
My aunt Lada was like this small tugboat, dressed in orange. She was a teacher leading her student into the sea of life. They had to take their own paths and part to different jobs and countries, but they always could pass the school by to say hi. She was there till this summer.
Let’s say, she’s now heading to another wonderful place. While we’ll remember what she gave us. I became an animation artist and created this project in her memory.
