One of Brodsky's first public performances, held as part of a "poets' tournament" at the Gorky Palace of Culture in Leningrad, was accompanied by a scandal. According to V. Krivulin's recollections, after the reading of "The Jewish Cemetery," which sounded to most of the young audience like "new, unheard-of music," "either David Yakovlevich Dar, later expelled from the Union of Writers, or Gleb Sergeyevich Semenov, the teacher and mentor of all the more or less notable Leningrad poets—I don't remember who was first, but both of them jumped up shouting: 'Remove the hooligan!'"

The Jewish cemetery near Leningrad.

A crooked fence made of rotten plywood.

Behind the crooked fence lie side by side

lawyers, merchants, musicians, revolutionaries.

They sang for themselves.

They saved for themselves.

They died for others.

But first they paid taxes,

respected the bailiff,

and in this world, hopelessly material,

interpreted the Talmud,

remaining idealists.

Maybe they saw more.

Or perhaps they believed blindly.

But they taught their children to be tolerant

and to become persistent.

And they did not sow bread.

Never sowed bread.

They simply lay down themselves

in the cold earth like seeds.

And fell asleep forever.

And then—they were covered with earth,

candles were lit,

and on the Day of Remembrance

hungry old men with high voices,

gasping from hunger, cried out for peace.

And they found it.

In the form of matter’s decay.

Remembering nothing.

Forgetting nothing.

Behind the crooked fence made of rotten plywood,

four kilometers from the tram ring.

Gordin continues the episode: "Joseph did not reach into his pocket for a poem, and in response to the outrage of his few opponents—the majority of the hall received him excellently—he read poems with the epigraph 'What is permitted to Jupiter is not permitted to the bull,' ending with these lines:

Play the fool, steal, pray!

Be lonely as a finger!..

…Like bulls—a whip,

For gods, the cross is eternal.

This was perceived by the present workers of the regional party committee and the Komsomol committee as an unbearable challenge, and the poor Natalia Iosifovna Grudinina, who "supervised" the tournament on behalf of the Union of Writers and who, a few years later, would risk her position defending Brodsky, was forced to condemn Joseph’s performance on behalf of the jury and declare it as if it had not taken place..." Both Krivulin and Gordin see the reasons for the scandal not in the provocative emphasis on the Jewish theme (it is hard to suspect Semenov and especially Dar, who emigrated to Israel in 1977, of anti-Semitism). Krivulin writes that the audience was divided into those who accepted the "new music" and those who "perceived it as something hostile, hateful, alien." Gordin sees Semenov’s indignation motivated by the fact that "The High Poet, who in his much-suffering life had accustomed himself to proud reserve, to silent resistance, <…> was offended by the frank and, one might say, naive rebellion radiated by Joseph, was outraged by the freedom that seemed undeserved and unsupported by talent. This last delusion, however, dissipated very quickly."

Both witnesses in their comments focus more on interpreting the listeners’ reaction, implying that the choice of texts and the very manner of their presentation fit into the romantic paradigm of the young poet’s creativity, which, in turn, is supported by facts from his early biography. However, Brodsky’s performance and the pathos of the poem central to the episode not only recall the romantic challenge of the rebellious poet but also apparently possess traits characteristic of the later Brodsky that had not yet fully emerged.

Sources:

http://gefter.ru/archive/11335#anchor13

https://protect812.com/2018/02/02/progulka-po-peterburgu-brodskogo/