SOURCE: "Picture Postcards from Venice," in Book World—The Washington Post, Vol. XXII, No. 19, May 10, 1992, p. 7.

In the following review of Watermark, Thwaite discusses Brodsky's descriptions of Venice.

Over the years, Venice hasn't lacked its literary memorialists and scene-setters, some of them almost as familiar as Canaletto's paintings. From Ruskin to Mary McCarthy, from Byron to Ian McEwan, from both Brownings to Thomas Mann and beyond, the city has been described, analyzed, apostrophized, employed as backdrop, symbol, analogue and template. It has probably inspired more postcard-from poems than any other city in the world. Indeed, Mary McCarthy called it "a folding picture-postcard of itself."

Joseph Brodsky has already used it in his two sets of "Venetian Stanzas" (1962):

     I am writing these lines sitting outdoors, in winter,
     on a white iron chair, in my shirtsleeves, a little drunk;
     the lips move slowly enough to hinder the vowels of the...