id-December 1989, poetry buffs
in Poland received a Christmas
present they had long been waiting
for: the first "official" (that is, nei-
ther underground nor emigre)
publication in Polish of the se- lected poems of Russian-American Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky. The fact that the book was just a reprint of an earlier emigre edition could not detract from the readers' satisfaction: Another taboo had been bro- ken, another long-vilified author had made his way into aboveground circulation....