朗诵会预定六点四十五开始,七点了我还在堵塞的车河中焦虑。到了国会图书馆,绕行两圈找不到停车位,所有附近付费停车场不开,眼看要错过我惦记好久的朗诵会,突然看见附近豪华饭店旁,若干穿红马甲服务生给参加那里聚会的衣冠楚楚客人免费停车。赶紧开过去,给了五元小费, 车钥匙一交,扬长向国会图书馆跑去。
赶上了Brigit Kelly朗诵她最后一首诗:歌。立即被震撼:
歌
听: 一只羊头被绳索挂在树上
他整夜都在歌唱
听到的人们心里黯然神伤
以为是夜莺在歌唱
他们坐起又躺下
辗转反侧在床上
夜风中羊头在前后摇晃
在几里远的地方
朦胧的月光照射
照射着无头的羊的身体
躺在铁路旁
一些男孩将他的头用斧子跺下
作为课余的玩耍
这只羊拼命地挣扎
如同男人般哀嚎
....
羊头被挂在树上
羊身抛在铁道旁
羊头呼唤羊身
羊身呼唤羊头
他们思念的力量越来越强
成长成强大的磁场
羊心突破胸腔
如鸟一般飞出
进入羊头内
如鸟飞回自己的笼子
然后羊心在羊头内歌唱
先是低回
续而高亢
时而低泣
时而悠长
直到升起了黎明的光
....
羊的主人,一个小女孩
在寻找自己的羊
人们赶紧将羊头隐藏
并凑钱再买一只羊
可是羊头内还有歌唱
唱给那些迷失的孩子们
....
直到一个男孩唱起了
他母亲小时候给他唱过的摇篮曲
听着凯丽在台上轻声的朗诵,我感觉被震撼, 如同第一次看毕加索的名画: 格而尼卡。
在座无虚席的二百多人的会议厅内,凯丽的面孔让我想起狄金森。
接着是在耶鲁任教有可能获得普利策奖的诗人 J.D.McClatchy, 他写诗之余,也写歌剧十余种,在世界各地上演。此人西装革履,风度翩翩,目光如炬。上来说看着凯丽朗诵,觉得她像自己的妹妹,他希望自己有这样一个妹妹。接着说,如果我声音小,后边的不要举手,因为我的问题不止是声音小,而且严重近视,你举了我也看不见。 全场哄堂大笑。他戴上眼镜,开始朗诵。不过,虽然诗歌技巧圆熟,但不大被他打动。
一首“中国诗”倒是有趣:
在你的花园中
不论干什么
不要再栽一棵树
一棵树意味着四季的悲哀:
什么会离去
什么会来临
什么不会离去
什么将不会来临
朗诵之后照例是酒会,签名售书。好在排队的人不算多,同他们两个都攀谈了许久。凯丽给我写的封面赠言是: 你有一个好听的名字:),这两个人都在大学教创意写作,颇有实力。据那里的人说,
今年的桂冠诗人 Kay Ryan最近也要朗诵她的诗,届时再报告。
- posted on 04/04/2009
从没去过诗歌朗诵会, 看来以后要找找我们湾区有没有类似的会, 狗一下能找到吗?
kelly是我们这local出生的(Palo altos), 她的诗是废名翻译的吗? 觉得很流畅, 就象一开始就用中文写似的。 这首“中国诗“ 我更喜欢。
"什么会离去
什么会来临
什么不会离去
什么将不会来临"
偏爱短诗,一种意味, 纯静又深邃。 可以贴这两首英文原版的吗?Kay Ryan是另一个local, born At San jose, 看来我们这出女诗人。
谈到Dickinson, 最近在读Emily Dickinson, 想起第一次知道Dickinson 还是考TOFEL时, 有一篇阅读理解里写Dickinson的。 总觉的英文诗常常我读不入味,还是程度的关系吧, 没有读中文诗时对字词一种微妙的感觉。 只有Dickinson的诗, 我能读出那么一点诗语言的简洁韵律的感觉, 所以就喜欢, 第一本英文诗集买的是泰戈尔的诗, 第二本就是Dickinson的。
Exultation is the going
Of inland soul to sea, --
Past the houses, past the headlands,
Into deep eternity.
Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The devine intoxication
Of the first league out from the land
- posted on 04/05/2009
谢草叶阅读。下面是原诗,我匆忙翻译,疏漏错误可能难免,容我有空再好好翻译一下。
Song
by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Listen: there was a goat's head hanging by ropes in a tree.
All night it hung there and sang. And those who heard it
Felt a hurt in their hearts and thought they were hearing
The song of a night bird. They sat up in their beds, and then
They lay back down again. In the night wind, the goat's head
Swayed back and forth, and from far off it shone faintly
The way the moonlight shone on the train track miles away
Beside which the goat's headless body lay. Some boys
Had hacked its head off. It was harder work than they had imagined.
The goat cried like a man and struggled hard. But they
Finished the job. They hung the bleeding head by the school
And then ran off into the darkness that seems to hide everything.
The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks.
The head called to the body. The body to the head.
They missed each other. The missing grew large between them,
Until it pulled the heart right out of the body, until
The drawn heart flew toward the head, flew as a bird flies
Back to its cage and the familiar perch from which it trills.
Then the heart sang in the head, softly at first and then louder,
Sang long and low until the morning light came up over
The school and over the tree, and then the singing stopped....
The goat had belonged to a small girl. She named
The goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry, named it after
The night's bush of stars, because the goat's silky hair
Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit.
The girl lived near a high railroad track. At night
She heard the trains passing, the sweet sound of the train's horn
Pouring softly over her bed, and each morning she woke
To give the bleating goat his pail of warm milk. She sang
Him songs about girls with ropes and cooks in boats.
She brushed him with a stiff brush. She dreamed daily
That he grew bigger, and he did. She thought her dreaming
Made it so. But one night the girl didn't hear the train's horn,
And the next morning she woke to an empty yard. The goat
Was gone. Everything looked strange. It was as if a storm
Had passed through while she slept, wind and stones, rain
Stripping the branches of fruit. She knew that someone
Had stolen the goat and that he had come to harm. She called
To him. All morning and into the afternoon, she called
And called. She walked and walked. In her chest a bad feeling
Like the feeling of the stones gouging the soft undersides
Of her bare feet. Then somebody found the goat's body
By the high tracks, the flies already filling their soft bottles
At the goat's torn neck. Then somebody found the head
Hanging in a tree by the school. They hurried to take
These things away so that the girl would not see them.
They hurried to raise money to buy the girl another goat.
They hurried to find the boys who had done this, to hear
Them say it was a joke, a joke, it was nothing but a joke....
But listen: here is the point. The boys thought to have
Their fun and be done with it. It was harder work than they
Had imagined, this silly sacrifice, but they finished the job,
Whistling as they washed their large hands in the dark.
What they didn't know was that the goat's head was already
Singing behind them in the tree. What they didn't know
Was that the goat's head would go on singing, just for them,
Long after the ropes were down, and that they would learn to listen,
Pail after pail, stroke after patient stroke. They would
Wake in the night thinking they heard the wind in the trees
Or a night bird, but their hearts beating harder. There
Would be a whistle, a hum, a high murmur, and, at last, a song,
The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother's call.
Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song
Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness.
- posted on 04/05/2009
Chinese Poem
by J. D. McClatchy
Do not plant another tree in the garden.
One tree means four seasons of sadness:
What is going,
What is coming,
What will not come,
What cannot go.
Here in bed, through the south window
I can see the moon watching us both,
Someone’s hand around its clump of light.
Yours? I know you are sitting out there,
Looking at silver bloom against black.
That drop from your cup on the night sky’s
Lacquer you wipe away with your sleeve
As if its pleated thickets were the wide space
Between us, though you know as well as I do
This autumn is no different from the last.
- Re: (博克)布吉特.凯丽和J.D.马克拉奇诗歌朗诵会posted on 04/06/2009
废名好兴致!
我慢慢才了解到,虽然美国(还有其他西方国家)没有作协提供铁饭碗,但仍有一套成形的体制来发掘、支持写诗的人。他们的地位显然比中国诗人要高,不知道我说对没有,废名指正。
- Re: (博克)布吉特.凯丽和J.D.马克拉奇诗歌朗诵会posted on 04/06/2009
我的感觉是,如果你在纽约的的格林威治村看到长发披肩的醉醺醺诗人抱怨怀才不遇,那多半是不成功的诗人,我不是指世俗的成功,而是指创作的实力。
有实力的诗人要么是大学教授,要么是住校作家,不济的也能拿个基金会的奖金,在某个农场隐居。我还有个出版诗集的朋友,在一个公司的公关部担任主管。我想这个体制的好处是,不需要像山东作协诗人写地震死了也值的主旋律。
我的感觉是: 中国诗人过去地位捧得太高,现在又变成最郁闷的一群,甚至被社会耻笑,都不是正常的。
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