In A Family Album (1918) one sees the impress of a tense and original mind, of imagination that is fed by strengthening fact, of sight that is sharpened by insight. Many of Brody’s lines are uncouth and awkward; what music he achieves is mostly fortuitous, the melody accidental. And yet his pages are filled with a picturesque honesty and uncompromising beauty. Much of this work is an interpretation of the modern world against a background of old dreams: young America seen through the eyes of old Russia. It is a romantic realism that uplifts such poems as “Kartúshkiya-Beróza” (a record of boyhood which is one of Brody’s finest achievements though, unfortunately, too long to quote), “A Row of Poplars: Central Park,” “Ghetto Twilight” and the poignant “Lamentations.” It is, to be more accurate, a romanticism that springs from reality and, after a fantastic flight, settles back with a new vision.
A CITY PARK
Timidly
Against a background of brick tenements
Some trees spread their branches
Skyward.
They are thin and sapless,
They are bent and weary—
Tamed with captivity;
And they huddle behind the fence