JOSEPH BRODSKY
531
tards' backs, or else controlling your fright or vomit. It's a reaction to
the world, and in that sense it's functional. Protective? Does it pro–
tect you? No, more than likely not. It really
exposes
you. But it's quite
possible that the exposure leads to the real test of your quality, of
your durability. To say the least, producing something of harmony
today is tantamount to saying in the face of chaos: "Look, you can't
break me, not yet." And "me" in the language stands for everybody.
I don't really know what the function of poetry is. It's simply
the way, so to speak, the light or dark refracts for you. That is, you
open the mouth. You open the mouth to scream, you open the mouth
to pray, you open the mouth to talk. Or you open the mouth to con–
fess. Well, each time presumably you are forced by something to do
so.
DM:
When you first arrived in the United States in 1972, you said
one fear you had was that your work would suffer a kind of paralysis
because you would be living outside the environment of your native
language. But, in fact , you've been prolific. What effect
has
living
here had on your poetry?
JB:
I don't know. I guess what I was saying then simply reflected my
fears. Prolific I was. I would imagine that I would have been as, if
not more, prolific, with no less interesting consequences for myself
and for my readers, had I stayed at home. I think that fear expressed
in 1972 reflected more the apprehension of losing my identity and
that self-respect as a writer. I think what I was really unsure of-and
I'm not so sure today, as a matter of fact - was that I wouldn't be–
come a simpleton, because the life here would require much less of
me, not as subtle an operation on a daily basis as in Russia. And in–
deed, in the final analysis, some of my instincts have dulled, I think.
But, on the other hand, by being apprehensive about that sort of
thing, you're trying to make up your own mind. And, after all, you
perhaps break even. You end up as neurotic as you would have been
otherwise. Only faster, though you can't be sure of that either.
DM:
You used the word stereoscopic before . Do you think being in
another country gives you a sort of double vision?
JB:
But, of course, if only because here a great world of information
is available to you. I was talking not long ago with a friend of mine,
and we were discussing the shortcomings of being away from our
country. And we came to the conclusion that perhaps the usual ap–
prehension of the individual as well as of his public or of his critics is
that, once outside of danger, out of harm's way, one's instincts, one's
pencil get duller. One's notion of evil becomes less sharp.
But, I think, on the contrary, in fact you find yourself really in
