Two Faces Of Messiah Comments

What a magnificent poem, Elizaveta! I mean that word MAGNIFICENT very strongly, because your poem has a largeness of purpose and intimacy of tone, which unite its public and private voices. Your poem has many dimensions but I won't list them because what matters is the portrait of Joseph Brodsky you paint in words. You have increased first my knowledge of the person J.B. was, and second my understanding of the role he played in YOUR life. We Americans live such prosperous and privileged lives we cannot comprehend the challenges and hardships you and fellow Russians and J.B. endured. I bow my head in respect. And when you pray to Christ, when you invoke Him in your poems, You are living on a plateau of spirituality above anything I can achieve. And I sense the same in your poem: it is long because its subject is so vast. I thought I knew Joseph Brodsky through my readings, but it's only recently in your accounts that I really have met the Man and Poet, and this poem is a culmination of my learning about him. I'm just a novice here, you are the master. But how quickly I am learning!