WHERE BRODSKY GOT IT

Below, an excerpt from the transcript smuggled out of Russia of Joseph Brodsky's trial in 1964 for "malicious parasitism":

JUDGE: And what is your profession?

BRODSKY: Poet. Poet and translator.

JUDGE: And who told you that you were a poet? Who assigned you that rank?

BRODSKY: No one. (Non-confrontationally.) Who assigned me to the human race?

JUDGE: And did you study for this?

BRODSKY: For what?

JUDGE: To become a poet? Did you try to attend a school where they train [poets] . . . where they teach . . .

BRODSKY: I don't think it comes from education.

JUDGE: From what, then?

BRODSKY: I think it's . . . (at a loss) . . . from God.