Soviet citizen Joseph Brodsky, shown here in 1964 at age 23, was arrested shortly after this photo was taken and sentenced to 5 years on a prison farm for: 

1. “having a worldview damaging to the state,”

2. “decadence and modernism,”

3. “failure to finish school, and”

4. “social parasitism … except for the writing of awful poems.”

The following is an excerpt from the transcript of his trial:

Judge: And what is your profession, in general?

    Brodsky: I am a poet and a literary translator.

    Judge: Who recognizes you as a poet? Who enrolled you in the ranks of poets?

    Brodsky: No one. Who enrolled me in the ranks of humankind?

    Judge: Did you study this?

    Brodsky: This?

    Judge: How to become a poet. You did not even try to finish high school where they prepare, where they teach?

    Brodsky: I didn’t think you could get this from school.

    Judge: How then?

    Brodsky: I think that it … comes from God, yes God.