Judge: Who said you were a poet? Who assigned you that rank?
Brodsky: No one. (Nonconfrontational.) Who assigned me to the human race?
FJP: In 1964, the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky was put on trial for being a "literary drone" who had no real work and was therefore a "parasite" on Soviet society. He was sentenced to five years exile from Leningrad with compulsory physical labor.
Source: Read more at the New Republic - http://bit.ly/KB6mR3
