Jeg vil give jer jeres anbefalede daglige dosis af poesi. Og måden, jeg vil gøre det, er præsentere jer for fem animationer af fem af mine digte. Og lad mig lige fortælle lidt om, hvordan de blev til. For at blande de to medier er en slags unaturlig eller unødvendig handling.
I'm here to give you your recommended dietary allowance of poetry. And the way I'm going to do that is present to you five animations of five of my poems. And let me just tell you a little bit of how that came about. Because the mixing of those two media is a sort of unnatural or unnecessary act.
Men da jeg var USAs nationaldigter -- og det elsker jeg at sige. (Latter) Det er en skøn måde at starte sætninger. Dengang jeg var ham, blev jeg opsøgt af J. Walter Thompson, reklamebureauet, og de var hyret af Sundance Channel. Idéen var at få mig til at optage nogle af mine digte, og så ville de finde animatorer for at animere dem. Først var jeg imod, for jeg synes altid, poesi kan stå alene af sig selv. Forsøg på at sætte mine digte til musik har haft katastrofale følger i alle tilfælde. Og digtet, hvis det er skrevet med øret, er allerede blevet sat til sin egen verbale musik, da det blev komponeret. Hvis man læser et digt, der nævner en ko, behøver man ikke på modsatte side en tegning af en ko. Lad nu læseren arbejde lidt.
But when I was United States Poet Laureate -- and I love saying that. (Laughter) It's a great way to start sentences. When I was him back then, I was approached by J. Walter Thompson, the ad company, and they were hired sort of by the Sundance Channel. And the idea was to have me record some of my poems and then they would find animators to animate them. And I was initially resistant, because I always think poetry can stand alone by itself. Attempts to put my poems to music have had disastrous results, in all cases. And the poem, if it's written with the ear, already has been set to its own verbal music as it was composed. And surely, if you're reading a poem that mentions a cow, you don't need on the facing page a drawing of a cow. I mean, let's let the reader do a little work.
Men jeg gav efter, for det virkede som en interessant mulighed, og jeg har også været en total tegnefilmsnarkoman fra barnsben. Jeg tror, mere indflydelsesrig end Emily Dickinson eller Coleridge eller Wordsworth på min fantasi var Warner Brothers, Merrie Melodies og Looney Tunes tegnefilm. Snurre Snup er min muse. Og på denne måde kunne poesi finde frem til fjernsynet af alle steder. Jeg er ret meget for poesi offentlige steder -- poesi på busser, poesi i metroen, på plakattavler, på morgenmadskasser. Da jeg var nationaldigter, nu gør jeg det igen -- jeg kan ikke lade være -- (Latter) Skabte jeg en poesikanal på Delta Airlines, der holdt et par år. Så man kunne stille ind på poesi, mens man fløj.
But I relented because it seemed like an interesting possibility, and also I'm like a total cartoon junkie since childhood. I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warner Brothers, Merrie Melodies and Loony Tunes cartoons. Bugs Bunny is my muse. And this way poetry could find its way onto television of all places. And I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places -- poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboards, on cereal boxes. When I was Poet Laureate, there I go again -- I can't help it, it's true -- (Laughter) I created a poetry channel on Delta Airlines that lasted for a couple of years. So you could tune into poetry as you were flying.
Min fornemmelse er, det er godt at få poesi ned fra hylderne og mere ud i offentligheden. Begynd et møde med et digt. Det ville være en idé at tage med. Når man får et digt på en tavle eller over radioen eller på morgenmaden eller andet, sker det så pludseligt, at man ikke har tid til at opsætte sit anti-poesi deflektorskjolde, der blev installeret i gymnasietiden.
And my sense is, it's a good thing to get poetry off the shelves and more into public life. Start a meeting with a poem. That would be an idea you might take with you. When you get a poem on a billboard or on the radio or on a cereal box or whatever, it happens to you so suddenly that you don't have time to deploy your anti-poetry deflector shields that were installed in high school.
Så lad os begynde med det første. Det er et lille digt ved navn "Budapest," og i det afslører jeg, eller foregiver at afsløre, den kreative proces' hemmeligheder.
So let us start with the first one. It's a little poem called "Budapest," and in it I reveal, or pretend to reveal, the secrets of the creative process.
(Video) Fortæller: "Budapest." Min pen bevæger sig langs siden som snuden på et underligt dyr formet som en menneskearm og klædt i ærmet af en løs grøn sweater. Jeg ser det snuse til papiret uophørligt, ufravendt som enhver fødesamler, der intet har på sinde, men larverne og insekterne, som vil lade det leve endnu en dag. Det vil blot være her i morgen, klædt måske i ærmet af en ternet skjorte, næsen presset mod siden, skrivende nogle flere lydige linjer, mens jeg stirrer ud af vinduet og forestiller mig Budapest eller en anden by, hvor jeg aldrig har været.
(Video) Narration: "Budapest." My pen moves along the page like the snout of a strange animal shaped like a human arm and dressed in the sleeve of a loose green sweater. I watch it sniffing the paper ceaselessly, intent as any forager that has nothing on its mind but the grubs and insects that will allow it to live another day. It wants only to be here tomorrow, dressed perhaps in the sleeve of a plaid shirt, nose pressed against the page, writing a few more dutiful lines while I gaze out the window and imagine Budapest or some other city where I have never been.
BC: Så det får det til at se lidt lettere ud. (Bifald) At skrive er faktisk ikke så let for mig. Men jeg kan lide at lade som om, det kommer let. En af mine elever kom op efter timen, en introduktionstime, og hun sagde, "Altså, poesi er sværere end at skrive," hvilket jeg fandt både urigtigt og dybsindigt. (Latter) Så jeg kan lide at bare foregive, det bare flyder. En af mine venner har et slogan; han er også digter. Han siger, at "hvis først du ikke lykkes, gem al bevis for, du nogensinde prøvede."
BC: So that makes it seem a little easier. (Applause) Writing is not actually as easy as that for me. But I like to pretend that it comes with ease. One of my students came up after class, an introductory class, and she said, "You know, poetry is harder than writing," which I found both erroneous and profound. (Laughter) So I like to at least pretend it just flows out. A friend of mine has a slogan; he's another poet. He says that, "If at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence you ever tried."
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Det næste digt er også ret kort. Poesi siger bare nogle ting på en anden måde. Og jeg tror man kunne koge dette digt ned til at sige, "Nogle dage spiser du bjørnen, andre dage spiser bjørnen dig." Det udnytter billedsproget ved dukkehusmøbler.
The next poem is also rather short. Poetry just says a few things in different ways. And I think you could boil this poem down to saying, "Some days you eat the bear, other days the bear eats you." And it uses the imagery of dollhouse furniture.
(Video) Fortæller: "Nogle Dage." Nogle dage sætter jeg folkene på deres pladser ved bordet, bøjer deres ben ved knæene, hvis de har den egenskab, og sætter dem på de små træstole. Hele eftermiddagen ser de hinanden, manden i det brune jakkesæt, kvinden i den blå kjole -- helt stille, perfekt opdragne. Men andre dage er det mig, der løftes op ved ribbenene og så sænket ind i et dukkehus' stue for at sidde med de andre ved langbordet. Meget sjovt. Men hvordan ville du have det, hvis du aldrig vidste fra en dag til den næste, om du skulle bruge den på at skridte rundt som en levende gud, dine skuldre i skyerne, eller sidde dernede blandt tapetten og stirre lige frem med dit lille plastikansigt?
(Video) Narration: "Some Days." Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress -- perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. But other days I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table. Very funny. But how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?
(Bifald)
(Applause)
BC: Der er en gyser derinde et sted. Det næste digt hedder glemsomhed, og det er virkelig bare en art poetisk essay om mental tilbagegang. Og digtet begynder med en bestemt art af glemsomhed, som nogen kaldte litterær hukommelsestab, med andre ord at glemme, hvad man har læst.
BC: There's a horror movie in there somewhere. The next poem is called forgetfulness, and it's really just a kind of poetic essay on the subject of mental slippage. And the poem begins with a certain species of forgetfulness that someone called literary amnesia, in other words, forgetting the things that you have read.
(Video) Fortæller: "Glemsomhed." Forfatterens navn er det første til at smutte, fulgt lydigt af titlen, plottet, den hjerteskærende slutning, hele romanen, som pludselig bliver en, du aldrig har læst, endda aldrig hørt om. Det er som, en efter en, besluttede minderne, du plejede at nære, at trække sig tilbage til hjernens sydlige hemisfære til en lille fiskerlandsby, hvor der ingen telefoner er. For lang tid siden kyssede du navnene på de ni muser farvel, og du den kvadratiske ligning pakke sin taske. Og selv nu, mens du memorerer planeternes rækkefølge, forsvinder noget andet, en stats blomst måske, en onkels adresse, Paraguays hovedstad. Hvad end det er, du kæmper for at huske, står det ikke parat på tungen, lurer ikke engang i et afsides hjørne af din milt. Det har flydt væk ned ad en mørk mytologisk flod, hvis navn begynder med et L, så vidt du kan genkalde, selv godt på din egen vej mod glemslen, hvor du vil slutte dig til dem, der endda har glemt, hvordan man svømmer eller kører på en cykel. Ikke underligt du står op midt om natten for at slå datoen på et berømt slag op i en bog om krig. Ikke underligt Månen i vinduet lader til at være drevet ud fra et kærlighedsdigt, du plejede at kunne udenad.
(Video) Narration: "Forgetfulness." The name of the author is the first to go, followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel, which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of. It is as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain to a little fishing village where there are no phones. Long ago, you kissed the names of the nine muses good-bye and you watched the quadratic equation pack its bag. And even now, as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have forgotten even how to swim and how to ride a bicycle. No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the Moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
BC: Det næste digt hedder "Landet" og det er baseret på, da jeg gik på universitetet, mødte jeg en klassekammerat, som stadig er en af mine venner. Han boede, og bor stadig, på landet i Vermont. Jeg boede i New York. Og vi besøgte hinanden. Og mens jeg var på landet, ville han lære mig ting som hjortejagt, hvilket egentlig betød at fare vild med et gevær -- (Latter) og ørredfiskeri og den slags. Og så ville han komme ned til New York, og jeg ville lære ham, hvad jeg vidste, hvilket mest var at ryge og drikke. (Latter) På den måde byttede vi lærdom med hinanden. Digtet, der nu kommer, er baseret på, hvordan han fortalte mig noget om en pointen ved en hjemme-etikette på landet, som jeg først havde meget svært ved at forstå. Det hedder "Landet."
BC: The next poem is called "The Country" and it's based on, when I was in college I met a classmate who remains to be a friend of mine. He lived, and still does, in rural Vermont. I lived in New York City. And we would visit each other. And when I would go up to the country, he would teach me things like deer hunting, which meant getting lost with a gun basically -- (Laughter) and trout fishing and stuff like that. And then he'd come down to New York City and I'd teach him what I knew, which was largely smoking and drinking. (Laughter) And in that way we traded lore with each other. The poem that's coming up is based on him trying to tell me a little something about a domestic point of etiquette in country living that I had a very hard time, at first, processing. It's called "The Country."
(Video) Fortæller: "Landet." Jeg undrede mig over dig, da du bad mig aldrig at lade en kasse stryg overalt tændstikker bare ligge rundt i huset, fordi musede kunne gå i dem og starte en brand. Men dit ansigt var helt fast, da du skruede låget ned på den runde dåse, hvor tændstikkerne, sagde du, altid bliver lagt i. Hvem kunne sove den nat? Hvem kunne feje tanken af banen om den ene usandsynlige mus, der trippede langs et koldt vandrør bag det blomstrede tapet, greb en enkelt trætændstik mellem sine nåletænder? Hvem kunne ikke se ham runde et hjørne, den blå spids krads mod ru-hugget bjælke, det pludselige glimt, og skabningen, i ét lyst, skinnende øjeblik, pludselig kastet forud for sin tid -- nu en ild-tænder, nu en fakkelbærer i et glemt ritual, lille brun druide oplysende en oldgammel nat? Og hvem kunne undgå at bemærke, oplyst i den flammende isolering de små udtryk af forundring på hans musekammeraters ansigter -- engangsbeboere af hvad, der engang var dit hus på landet?
(Video) Narration: "The Country." I wondered about you when you told me never to leave a box of wooden strike-anywhere matches just lying around the house, because the mice might get into them and start a fire. But your face was absolutely straight when you twisted the lid down on the round tin where the matches, you said, are always stowed. Who could sleep that night? Who could whisk away the thought of the one unlikely mouse padding along a cold water pipe behind the floral wallpaper, gripping a single wooden match between the needles of his teeth? Who could not see him rounding a corner, the blue tip scratching against rough-hewn beam, the sudden flare and the creature, for one bright, shining moment, suddenly thrust ahead of his time -- now a fire-starter, now a torch-bearer in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid illuminating some ancient night? And who could fail to notice, lit up in the blazing insulation, the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces of his fellow mice -- one-time inhabitants of what once was your house in the country?
(Bifald)
(Applause)
BC: Tak. (Bifald) Tak. Det sidste dig hedder "De Døde." Jeg skrev det efter en vens begravelse, men ikke så meget om vennen som noget lovpriseren blev ved at sige, som alle lovprisere har det med at gøre, hvilket er, hvor glade de døde ville være over at se ned og se os alle samlet. Og det var for mig en dårlig start på efterlivet, at skulle se sin egen begravelse og føle sig glad. Så det lille dig hedder "De Døde."
BC: Thank you. (Applause) Thank you. And the last poem is called "The Dead." I wrote this after a friend's funeral, but not so much about the friend as something the eulogist kept saying, as all eulogists tend to do, which is how happy the deceased would be to look down and see all of us assembled. And that to me was a bad start to the afterlife, having to witness your own funeral and feel gratified. So the little poem is called "The Dead."
(Video) Fortæller: "De Døde." De døde ser altid ned på os, siges det. Mens vi tager sko på eller laver en sandwich, ser de ned gennem himlens glas-bunds-både, mens de roer sig langsomt gennem evigheden. De ser toppen af vores hoveder, der flytter sig på Jorden. Og når vi ligger ned på en mark eller på en briks bedøvet måske af en varm eftermiddags summen, tror de, vi ser tilbage på dem, hvilket får dem til at løfte deres årer og være stille og vente som forældre på, at vi lukker vores øjne.
(Video) Narration: "The Dead." The dead are always looking down on us, they say. While we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich, they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven as they row themselves slowly through eternity. They watch the tops of our heads moving below on Earth. And when we lie down in a field or on a couch, drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon, they think we are looking back at them, which makes them lift their oars and fall silent and wait like parents for us to close our eyes.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
BC: Jeg ved ikke, om andre digte vil blive animeret. Det tog lang tid -- jeg mener, det er ret unormalt at have dette ægteskab -- lang tid at sætte de to sammen. Men så alligevel, det tog os lang tid at sætte hjulet og kufferten sammen. (Latter) Vi har haft hjulet i en del tid. Og at slæbe er en gammel og ærværdig kunst.
BC: I'm not sure if other poems will be animated. It took a long time -- I mean, it's rather uncommon to have this marriage -- a long time to put those two together. But then again, it took us a long time to put the wheel and the suitcase together. (Laughter) I mean, we had the wheel for some time. And schlepping is an ancient and honorable art.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Jeg har lige tid til at læse et nyere digt for jer. Hvis det har et tema, er det pubertet. Og det er henvendt til en bestemt person. Det hedder "Til Min Yndlings 17-Årige Gymnasiepige."
I just have time to read a more recent poem to you. If it has a subject, the subject is adolescence. And it's addressed to a certain person. It's called "To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl."
"Ved du, at hvis du var begyndt at bygge Parthenon den dag, du blev født, ville du være helt færdig om bare ét år? Selvfølgelig kunne du ikke have gjort det helt alene. Så lige meget; du er bare dig selv. Du er elsket for bare at være dig. Men vidste du, at på din alder tjente Judy Garland 150.000 dollars pr. billede, Jeanne D'Arc ledte den franske hær til sejr og Blaise Pascal havde gjort sit værelse rent -- nej vent, jeg mener, havde han opfundet regnemaskinen? Selvfølgelig vil der være tid til alt det senere i dit liv, efter du kommer ud af dit værelse og begynder at blomstre eller i det mindste samle alle dine sokker op. Af en eller anden årsag bliver jeg ved at huske, at Lady Jane Grey var dronning af England, da hun kun var 15. Men så blev hun halshugget, så glem hende som rollemodel. (Latter) Et par århundreder senere, da han var på din alder, vaskede Franz Schubert op for sin familie, men det afholdt ham ikke fra at komponere to symfonier, fire operaer og to hele messer som ung mand. (Latter) Men selvfølgelig var det i Østrig på højden af romantisk lyrik, ikke her i Clevelands forstæder. (Latter) Helt ærligt, og hvad så, hvis Annie Oakley var mesterskytte som 15-årig, eller hvis Maria Callas debuterede som Tosca som 17-årig? Vi synes, du er speciel for at være dig -- legende med din mad og stirrende ud i rummet. (Latter) Forresten, jeg løj om, at Schubert vaskede op, men det betyder ikke, han aldrig hjalp rundt om i huset."
"Do you realize that if you had started building the Parthenon on the day you were born, you would be all done in only one more year? Of course, you couldn't have done that all alone. So never mind; you're fine just being yourself. You're loved for just being you. But did you know that at your age Judy Garland was pulling down 150,000 dollars a picture, Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room -- no wait, I mean he had invented the calculator? Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life, after you come out of your room and begin to blossom, or at least pick up all your socks. For some reason I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey was queen of England when she was only 15. But then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model. (Laughter) A few centuries later, when he was your age, Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family, but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies, four operas and two complete masses as a youngster. (Laughter) But of course, that was in Austria at the height of Romantic lyricism, not here in the suburbs of Cleveland. (Laughter) Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15 or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17? We think you're special just being you -- playing with your food and staring into space. (Laughter) By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes, but that doesn't mean he never helped out around the house."
(Latter)
(Laughter)
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Tak. Tak.
Thank you. Thank you.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Tak.
Thanks.
(Bifald)
(Applause)