Newyorker

My late colleague Joseph Brodsky, who died in 1996, used to appall his students by requiring them to memorize something like a thousand lines each semester. He felt he was preparing them for the future; they might need such verses later in life. ...... Brodsky was a nonpareil in various ways, not least in being the only teacher I knew who continued to smoke during class as the air-purifying nineties rolled around. He loved to recite poetry. The words emerged through smoke, and a thick Russian accent, but the conviction and import were unmistakable: to take a poem to heart was to know it by heart.