Because every book of art, be it a poem or a cupola, is understandably a self-portrait of its author, we won't strain ourselves too hard trying to distinguish between the author's persona and the poem's lyrical hero. As a rule, such distinctions are quite meaningless, if only because a lyrical hero is invariably an author's self-projection.

Plays
1989: Marbles : a Play in Three Acts translated by Alan Myers with Joseph Brodsky. Brodsky dedicated much love poetry to Marina Basmanova:


Denunciation
In 1963 Brodsky's poetry was denounced by a Leningrad newspaper as "pornographic and anti-Soviet. ed.

He was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1991. He taught thereafter at universities including those at Yale Cambridge and Michigan.