Five Facets of Myself
1967
Comb-bound: 104 pp.
Published: 1995
Price: $9.95
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Brodsky’s first full-length book of poems, Five Facets of Myself, a collection of fifty pieces, explores the broader cultural awareness of the mid 1960s, from one man’s provocative vantage point — that of a young, unencumbered student, fettered only by the "tended vastation" of "dog-eared days" spent in "a passive classroom" — as he questions the moral values, historical significance, and provincial attitudes of the time.
Cottage by the Gulf
The strip of beach
Filled up with loose-billed sounds
Of sandpipers, gulls, and pelicans.
Our cottage was Venice,
Mounted on ancient staves
Above the sandy tides.
We sat on the porch,
Watching the Gulf gather speed.
Waves, like a palm's windy fronds,
Uncurled onto the shore,
While its windscorched lips,
As if in pantomime,
Absorbed smaller oceans of spray,
One at a time.
We gazed out silently
Behind the violent monster,
This gargantuan sea.
Far out,
Beyond a swelling forest of breakers,
A baleful gardener
Walked on waves, raking their crests.
I sighed. She balked with fright,
Ran into the cottage to hide.
"Something's not right!" she cried.
"This is a slutty Gulf!" I shouted.
"You can't ever predict
When it'll seduce the weather."
I watched the sky
Fill up with vapour
As far as the eye could detect.
Soon, the wind shifted directions,
And the cottage, a web
Stitched loosely to decaying twigs,
Lifted once but held secure.
Then I was sure I knew
The grating whine that frothed
And barked at the darkening sky.
"Hurricane!"
I cried,
As I ran inside to pray.
