Leningrad, Jan 8. – Foreign correspondents in Moscow and Leningrad are vainly trying to find out anything about the fate of the poet Joseph Brodsky, exiled as a “social parasite.” One thing is clear: he remains imprisoned. At the moment, all the messages about Brodsky either being already released or about to be released soon, turned out to be false. Brodsky is still in exile. But the Soviet authorities refuse to tell where exactly he is.

The message that one of the Soviet “youth” magazines is allegedly about to print Brodsky’s new poems also proved incorrect. Nothing of the kind has yet happened, although the rumor about the possible publication of poems by the young poet had circulated for a long time.

A few months ago, the Western press printed part of the stenographic report of the Brodsky trial. Western intellectuals were horrified by the rude and cynical attacks of the prosecutor and judge against the unfortunate poet.

The prosecutor called Brodsky not only a “social parasite,” but also a “morally filthy person,” “scoundrel,” “renegade,” “parasite.”

Brodsky’s witnesses of defense tried to prove the exact opposite: he is a man of exceptional honesty and generosity, who lived with his parents, whom he gave all his beggarly income.