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.
比利•柯林斯:我今天为大家推荐 您每日应摄取的 “诗”量。 而我与大家分享的方法, 就是向大家展示 我五首诗的 五个动画短片。 让我先简单介绍一下这些动画的来源吧, 因为这两种媒体的结合 似乎并不是件很自然或必须的事。
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.
但当我还是美国桂冠诗人的时候 我很爱这样说, (笑声) 因为这是一种很好的起句方式。 当我还是他的时候, 智威汤逊广告公司来找过我, 他们受雇于 圣丹斯频道。 他们有意让我录一些我的诗, 然后让动画制作师 将它们做成影片。 起初我有些不愿, 因为我一直认为 诗歌可以是一种独立的个体。 之前尝试把我的诗与音乐结合在一起 的作品都非常糟糕, 无一例外。 而且如果一首诗是用耳朵“写”的, 那么当它被创作出来时, 就已经有了它的乐曲。 当然,如果你在读一首诗, 诗中提到了牛, 你完全不需要这页纸上 画有一头牛。 我说,就让读者动一小会脑子吧。
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.
但是我还是同意了,这毕竟是个很有意思的尝试, 而且我自从儿时就对动画 上瘾。 我想, 相比较迪更生、柯尔律治或华兹华斯来说, 对我的想象力更有帮助的 是华纳兄弟动画公司,梅里小旋律, 和兔宝宝的动画。 兔八哥也是我的钟爱。 所以这个方法也许会使诗歌出现在电视中。 而且我十分支持在公共地点展示的诗歌 在公交车上,地铁里, 广告牌上,麦片盒上...... 当我还是桂冠诗人时,我又来了, 但我没办法,这的确是真的 (笑声) 我在达美航空开创了一个诗歌频道, 开通了几年时间。 所以当你在飞机上的时候也可以听到诗歌。
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.
我的想法就是, 把诗歌从书架上搬下来 传播到日常生活中,是一件很好的事情。 你也许愿意尝试以诗开始一场会议。 当你在广告牌上看到、在收音机中听到、 从麦片盒上或其它地方读到一首诗的时候, 它们往往都出现得太突然, 让你来不及 调动你高中时就 配备的诗歌防御罩。
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.
那么让我们从第一首开始吧。 这是首简短的的小诗,名叫“布达佩斯”。 它展现, 或试图展现 创作过程的奥秘。
(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.
(视频)旁白:“布达佩斯”。 我的笔划过纸页 像是个奇异动物的鼻子, 形似人的手臂 穿在宽大的 绿色毛衣的袖子里。 我看着它不停地嗅着纸张, 像个觅食的动物, 别无它想, 只为寻蛆和昆虫果腹, 争取再活一天。 它只想明天还留在此地, 或许穿在 格子衬衫的袖子里, 鼻尖对准纸页, 尽职地多写几行。 而我,则向窗外望去, 想象着布达佩斯 或是别的 我还没去过的城市。
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."
看上去动画是对诗的理解有所帮助。 (掌声) 写作对我来说其实并没有那么容易。 但我喜欢装作它很容易。 我有位学生,在一堂入门课后 对我说:“你知道吗写诗其实比写作要难?” 我觉得她的话虽然并不正确,但却很有深度。 (笑声) 总之,我宁愿装作我下笔如流。 我另一个诗人朋友有句口号, 他说:“如果你一开始不成功, 就把你所有尝试过的迹象都藏起来。”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
下首诗也是很短的一首。 诗只是把有些事物用不同的方式表达出来。 但我相信下面这首诗可以被总结为: “有时你吃熊,有时熊吃你。” 它使用的意象 是玩具屋中的家具。
(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?
(影视)旁白:“有些天” 有些天 我把人偶放到他们在桌旁应属的位置。 如果他们的膝盖可以弯曲, 我就让他们曲腿而坐, 并把他们固定在小木椅上。 一整个下午他们对望着彼此, 那个身着棕色西服的男子, 那个穿着蓝色裙子的女人, 一动不动,任你摆布。 又有些天, 我则是那个玩偶,身子被提起, 然后放进玩具屋的餐厅中, 和别的玩偶一起坐在长桌前。 很好笑吧。 但是你会如何面对 日复一日中,你不知道 自己会像 神明般阔步而行, 肩入云霄; 或是坐在那儿, 在墙纸边, 小小的塑料脸庞 直视前方?
(Applause)
(掌声)
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.
这里一定带有恐怖片的成分。 下一首是叫做“健忘”, 它其实是一篇类似诗的小品, 是有关忘性的。 诗是以 一种被人们称作 文学健忘症的忘性 开始的。 换句话说就是忘记你读过的内容。
(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.
(视频)旁白:“健忘”。 首先消失的是作者的名字, 而后便是 标题、情节、 心碎的结局。 整本小说 突然变成了你从未读过的, 甚至从未听说过的。 就好像,一个个 你珍惜的记忆 都退休到了头脑的南半球, 去了一个小小的渔村, 完全失去了联络。 很久以前, 你吻别了那九个缪斯女神的名字, 你眼看着二次方程 打包走人。 甚至是现在, 当你熟记了行星的顺序, 也有其它的什么正在溜走, 也许是一朵州花, 一位叔叔的住址, 或是巴拉圭的首都。 不管 你在费力地回想什么, 它都没有在你的舌尖停稳, 也没有 潜伏在你脾脏中 某个隐蔽的角落。 它已漂走了, 顺着神话中的黑暗河流。 你只能回忆起它的名字以L开始。 剩下的你记不起来了。 就在你通往遗忘的路上, 你将加入那些 甚至忘记了如何游泳 和骑自行车的人们。 怪不得,你在午夜起身, 在一本关于战争的书中查找 一场著名战役的日期。 怪不得,窗中的月亮 似乎已飘出那首 你曾铭记于心的情诗。
(Applause)
(掌声)
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."
下一首诗名叫“郊外”, 是有关于 我在大学时 的一个同学,也是我现在的一位朋友。 他那时候,和现在一样,都住在佛蒙特。 而我住在纽约市。 我们会去看望彼此。 我去他郊外找他的时候, 他就会教我猎鹿之类的事, 对我来说基本上就是带着一把猎枪迷路。 (笑声) 还有钓鳟鱼、等等。 他也会来纽约 然后我就会教他我所知道的, 大部分内容无非是抽烟喝酒。 (笑声) 我们用这种方式交换知识。 下面这首诗 与我的这位朋友有关。 他曾试图向我解释一则郊外 家庭生活传统, 而最初我觉得这一点很难理解。 这首诗名叫“郊外”。
(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?
(影视)旁白:“郊外”。 当你告诉我 不要把易燃的火柴 随便扔在家里时, 我很是不解。 因为老鼠有可能会爬过去 然后引起着火。 但是,当你拧下 装火柴的圆罐盖子时, 你的表情那么坦诚, 还说要把火柴一直存放在那里。 那晚谁睡得着呀? 谁能不去想 那只不大可能会出现的老鼠 顺着冷水管爬到 印花的墙纸后, 用尖锐的牙齿叼起 一只木棍火柴? 谁会看不到他拐过墙角? 谁会看不到那蓝色的火柴头划过粗糙的房梁, 和那突如其来的火焰? 在一个明亮耀眼的瞬间,这生物 突然穿越了时代. 成为了一个纵火者, 一个火炬手。 在一场被人遗忘的祭祀上, 谁会看不到小小的棕色祭司 照亮了古老的夜晚? 谁会注意不到 那被炽热的光芒照亮了的 带着惊异的 别的老鼠的小小脸庞, 那些曾经住在 你郊外家中的居民?
(Applause)
(掌声)
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."
谢谢。 (掌声) 谢谢。这最后一首诗名叫“已故之人”, 是我在参加完一场朋友的葬礼后所作, 但这与我朋友的赞颂者所言不同。 因为他们会说, 已故之人看到我们大家都聚集在这里时, 是多么的快乐。 对我来说,这是死后非常不好的开始, 因为你要目睹自己的葬礼并做到心满意足。 所以这首诗名叫“已故之人”。
(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.
(影视)旁白:“已故之人”。 死去的人会在天上一直看着我们, 他们如是说。 当我们穿鞋,或是做三明治的时候, 他们会 从天堂一条透明底的船中望下来, 一边望着我们, 一边驶向永恒。 他们会看着我们的头顶 在人间移动。 当我们躺在 草地或睡椅上, 或许沉溺于 温暖午后的嘈杂中, 他们以为我们也在看着他们。 于是他们抬起船桨, 悄悄地, 向父母一样, 等着我们闭上眼睛。
(Applause)
(掌声)
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.
我不确定别的诗会不会配动画。 这花了很长的时间 我的意思是,这是个很不平常的结合, 需要很长时间来融入彼此。 但是同样的,我们也花了很长时间 才把轮子和箱子结合在了一起。 (笑声) 我是说,我们很久前就有了轮子。 生拉硬拽是一个古老而崇高的艺术。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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."
我还有些时间 来给你们读一首我近期的作品。 如果说这首诗有个主题, 那么这主题就是青春。 我将它送给一位特定的人。 诗名叫“致我最爱的17岁女高中生”。
"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."
“你知道吗?如果你从出生那天 就开始建帕提农神庙, 你还一年就可以完工了。 当然,你自己是完成不了这样的任务的。 所以没关系, 你只要做好你自己就好。 会有人爱这样的你。 但是你知道吗?像你这么大的时候, 茱蒂•加兰拍一张照片就可以赚15万美元; 圣女贞德正带领法国大军向胜利进发; 布莱士•帕斯卡已经打扫了他的房间, 不,我是说发明了计算器。 当然,你以后也有时间 做这些, 当你踏出房门, 开始绽放, 或者至少把你的袜子捡起来。 某些原因总让我想起 英国的简·格雷夫人, 在她15岁时便当上了女王。 但是她最终还是被砍了头,所以不要以她为榜样吧。 (笑声) 几世纪后, 当他像你这么大的时候, 舒伯特就帮家里洗碗。 即使是这样,他年轻的时候便 谱写了两部交响乐,四部歌剧 和两部完整的弥撒曲。 (笑声) 当然,那是在奥地利, 在浪漫主义抒情体的巅峰, 不是我们现在所在的克利夫兰郊区。 (笑声) 说真的,谁会在乎 安妮•奥克利15岁时就是神枪手, 玛丽亚•卡拉斯17岁时便首次献唱托斯卡? 我们认为你就是你,你是特别的。 你会摆弄你的食物,会发呆。 (笑声) 顺便说一下, 我说舒伯特洗碗是骗你的, 但那不代表他从来没帮忙做过家务。”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
(Applause)
(掌声)
Thank you. Thank you.
谢谢。谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)
Thanks.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)