"Remembering Joseph Brodsky," a tribute to the late Nobel laureate poet and Mount Holyoke professor of English and Russian, will be held Tuesday, February 6, from 4 to 5 pm in the library's Stimson Room. Photo by Judy Schmalz.

"Remembering Joseph Brodsky,” a tribute to the late Nobel laureate poet and Mount Holyoke professor of English and Russian, will be held Tuesday, February 6, from 4 to 5 pm in the library's Stimson Room. The event will include the unveiling of a photograph of Brodsky (which will now hang in the library) by renowned photographer Jerome Liebling and readings and commentary about Brodsky's life and work. Speaking at the event, in either English or Russian, will be Joseph Ellis, Ford Foundation Professor of History; Russian professors Edwina Cruise and Peter Scotto; English professor Robert Shaw; lecturers in English Sven Birkerts and Mary Jo Salter, and Wendy Watson, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum curator. Refreshments will be served.

Joseph Brodsky was a persecuted Russian poet who settled in the United States in the early 1970s. His critically acclaimed poems, plays, essays, and criticisms appeared in many publications, including the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books and other magazines, They were also widely anthologized. Brodsky won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987 and was named United States poet laureate in 1991. He began teaching at Mount Holyoke in 1974 and for fifteen years was Andrew W. Mellow Professor of Literature at the College. He died at the age of fifty-five in 1996.

MHC's dean of the faculty's office purchased the portrait of Brodsky for the library. Says Wendy Watson, “Portraits of presidents and faculty members at most colleges are not necessarily the most compelling likenesses that hang on our communal walls. But Donal O'Shea [dean of the faculty] perspicaciously snapped up this beautiful portrait of our late beloved colleague Joseph Brodsky when the opportunity presented itself. In doing so, he has ensured that all of us who work in the library's reading room will have as our muse one of the most inspirational faculty members ever to teach at Mount Holyoke.”

Photographer Jerome Liebling is professor emeritus of film and photography at Hampshire College. He came to Hampshire from the University of Minnesota in 1970 to found the film and photography program, which has produced many distinguished graduates there. Liebling's photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the country. He has twice been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue his work.

“Liebling has always taken on the big issues in his documentary work: death, politics, poverty, and the close view of daily life,” notes Watson. “His beautifully composed photographs always give rare insight into the human condition. And his portraits go straight to the heart, as we see in this image of a young Joseph Brodsky, newly arrived in the United States, still speaking halting English. When Jerry made this photo, Joseph was visiting the Five College Area for the first time. He would come back a few years later to take up his post at Mount Holyoke and go on to transform the lives of our students.”