SOURCE: "Nobel-Winning Poet Joseph Brodsky, 55, Dies," in Washington Post, January 29, 1996, p. B4.

Below, Well discusses Brodsky's life, particularly his experiences in the former Soviet Union.

Joseph Brodsky, 55, a poet exiled from the Soviet Union who went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature and become poet laureate of the United States, died Jan. 28 at his home in New York City.

Mr. Brodsky's longtime publisher, Roger Straus Jr., said the world-renowned poet, who had suffered for years from severe heart problems, had died of a heart attack at his apartment in Brooklyn Heights.

As much as any of his contemporaries, Mr. Brodsky seemed to typify the romantic image of the artist struggling against nature and human institutions on behalf of his poetic vision.

He grew up in a communal apartment in Leningrad. He dropped out of school at age 15, and he became one of the underground poets whose...