Brodsky says that there was never a single dramatic moment when he realized in a blaze of clarity that he would become a poet. In some ways, I'm distressed to have turned into a professional writer. I used to regard it as a byproduct of life, a gentleman's occupation. A picture I had was to be in the merchant marine, a deckhand, to disembark at a cheap hotel and write a couple of elegies. For Brodsky, the value of literature lies in its power to evoke uniqueness and individuality.
Poetry offers a higher plane of regard.
It is a terrific accelerator of one's mental operations. To use the modern lingo, it expands your consciousness. And in that sense, it saves. In that spirit, he teaches the work of his favorite poets, requiring his students to memorize up to 2,000 lines of poetry a semester. Poetry, he believes, offers an antidote to the illusions created by politics as well as popular culture.