Sir, - May I add a few curious details to the interesting article on the Russian poet, Joseph Brodsky, and his English prose ("Weekend", December 7th). In Stockholm, during the 1987 Nobel Prize celebrations, Brodsky recalled his first attempts to translate English poetry. Whilst in exile near Arkhangelsk (1964-65), he had received a gift of an anthology of English and American poetry.
Having no knowledge of English, he used a dictionary to translate, word by word, the first three verses of a chosen poem, then the last three verses. He used his own imagination to construct the "in between". It was like the work of an archaeologist who, having found a few bits and pieces, tries to reconstruct an ancient vase. It was a good mental exercise and a time-killer, said Brodsky.
Brodsky's third language was Polish, which he learned before English. His Russian contemporaries remember how, in the early 1960s, he read poems by the Polish poet K. Galczynski (1905-1953) in parallel - first in the original, and then in translation. His remarkable interest in Poland was probably for two reasons; firstly, because of the "peculiarities" of Polish history and its instinct for self-preservation, and, secondly, for the sonority of the language, closely related to Russian, yet phonetically different.
In an interview, Brodsky said: "In the 1960s we needed a window on to Europe, and the Polish language provided it". His own first contacts with works by William Faulkner and James Joyce were through their Polish translations. - Yours, etc.
Woodley Park, Dundrum, Dublin 1