I read poetry all the time and write about it frequently and take poems apart to see how they work because I'm a word person. I understand the world best, most fully, in words rather than, say, pictures or numbers, and when I have a new experience or a new feeling, I'm a little frustrated until I can try to put it into words. I think I've always been that way. I devoured science fiction as a child. I still do. And I found poems by Andrew Marvell and Matthew Arnold and Emily Dickinson and William Butler Yeats because they were quoted in science fiction, and I loved their sounds and I went on to read about ottava rima and medial caesuras and enjambment and all that other technical stuff that you care about if you already care about poems, because poems already made me happier and sadder and more alive. And I became a poetry critic because I wanted to know how and why.
Ja čitam poeziju sve vreme, pišem često o njoj, analiziram pesme, da vidim kako one funkcionišu zato što sam zaljubljenik u reč. Razumem svet mnogo bolje, gotovo u potpunosti, kada je dat u rečima nego, recimo, u slikama ili brojevima. I kada doživim neko novo iskustvo ili osetim nešto novo, pomalo sam frustriran dok to ne mogu da pretvorim u reči. Mislim da sam uvek takav bio. Upijao sam naučnu fantastiku kao dete. Još uvek to činim. Pronašao sam pesme Endrjua Marvela, Metjua Arnolda, Emili Dikinson, i Vilijema Batlera Jejtsa zato što su citirane u naučnoj fantastici i zato što volim kako one zvuče. Nastavio sam sa čitanjem o otavi, cezurama u sredini i anžambenu i svim drugim tehničkim stvarima o kojima vodite računa ukoliko vodite računa o pesmama zato što me pesme već čine srećnijim, tužnijim i življim. Postao sam kritičar poezije zato što sam želeo da znam kako i zašto.
Now, poetry isn't one thing that serves one purpose any more than music or computer programming serve one purpose. The greek word poem, it just means "a made thing," and poetry is a set of techniques, ways of making patterns that put emotions into words. The more techniques you know, the more things you can make, and the more patterns you can recognize in things you might already like or love.
Sad, poezija nije stvar koja više služi svojoj svrsi više nego što muzika ili kompjutersko programiranje služe svojoj. Grčka reč ,,poema" znači samo ,,napravljena stvar" Poezija predstavlja spoj tehnika, načine kreiranja šablona po kojima se osećanja pretvaraju u reči. Što više tehnika poznajete, to više stvari možete da napravite, više šablona možete da prepoznate u stvarima koje vam se već dopadaju ili koje volite.
That said, poetry does seem to be especially good at certain things. For example, we are all going to die. Poetry can help us live with that. Poems are made of words, nothing but words. The particulars in poems are like the particularities, the personalities, that distinguish people from one another. Poems are easy to share, easy to pass on, and when you read a poem, you can imagine someone's speaking to you or for you, maybe even someone far away or someone made up or someone deceased. That's why we can go to poems when we want to remember something or someone, to celebrate or to look beyond death or to say goodbye, and that's one reason poems can seem important, even to people who aren't me, who don't so much live in a world of words. The poet Frank O'Hara said, "If you don't need poetry, bully for you," but he also said when he didn't want to be alive anymore, the thought that he wouldn't write any more poems had stopped him. Poetry helps me want to be alive, and I want to show you why by showing you how, how a couple of poems react to the fact that we're alive in one place at one time in one culture, and in another we won't be alive at all.
Kažu da poezija može biti posebno korisna u određenim stvarima. Na primer, svi ćemo mi umreti. Poezija nam pomaže da živimo sa tim. Pesme su sačinjene od reči, ništa sem reči. Pojedinosti u pesmama su kao osobenosti, ličnosti koje razdvajaju jednog čoveka od drugog. Pesme je lako deliti, prenositi i kada čitate pesmu, vi možete zamisliti nekog kako vam priča ili radi za vas, možda čak i neko ko je daleko ili neko ko je izmišljen ili neko ko je preminuo. Eto zašto se možemo vratiti pesmama kada želimo da upamtimo nešto ili nekog, da slavimo ili pogledamo izvan smrti ili da se oprostimo. To je razlog zbog kog pesme mogu izgledati važne čak i ljudima koji nisu poput mene, koji ne žive toliko u svetu reči. Pesnik Frenk O'Hara kaže: ,,Ako ti nije potrebna poezija, sreća tvoja." Ali je takođe kazao da kada je hteo da umre, pomisao da više ne bi pisao pesme ga je sprečila u tome. Poezija mi pomaže da živim i želim da vam objasnim zašto je to tako pokazujući vam kako se par pesama odražava na činjenicu da smo u jednom trenutku živi na jednom mestu i u jednoj kulturi, a u drugom nećemo biti živi uopšte.
So here's one of the first poems I memorized. It could address a child or an adult.
Evo jedne od prvih pesama koju sam upamtio. Može se odnositi i na dete i na odraslu osobu.
"From far, from eve and morning
Iz daljine, od noći do jutra,
From yon twelve-winded sky,
sa neba dvanaest vetrova,
The stuff of life to knit me
stvari od kojih sam sazdan,
Blew hither; here am I.
duvaju tamo, ovde sam ja.
Now — for a breath I tarry
Sad, za dah koji zadržavam
Nor yet disperse apart —
koji još uvek ispustio nisam
Take my hand quick and tell me,
uhvati me brzo za ruku i reci mi
What have you in your heart.
šta u srcu obitava tvom.
Speak now, and I will answer;
Reci sad i ja ću ti kazati
How shall I help you, say;
Ti mi kaži kako da pomognem tebi ja,
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
pre dvanaest četvrti vetra
I take my endless way."
Krenuću putem beskraja
[A. E. Housman]
[A. E. Housman]
Now, this poem has appealed to science fiction writers. It's furnished at least three science fiction titles, I think because it says poems can brings us news from the future or the past or across the world, because their patterns can seem to tell you what's in somebody's heart. It says poems can bring people together temporarily, which I think is true, and it sticks in my head not just because it rhymes but for how it rhymes, cleanly and simply on the two and four, "say" and "way," with anticipatory hints on the one and three, "answer" and "quarters," as if the poem itself were coming together. It plays up the fact that we die by exaggerating the speed of our lives. A few years on Earth become one speech, one breath. It's a poem about loneliness -- the "I" in the poem feels no connection will last — and it might look like a plea for help 'til you get to the word "help," where this "I" facing you, taking your hand, is more like a teacher or a genie, or at least that's what he wants to believe. It would not be the first time a poet had written the poem that he wanted to hear.
Sad, ova pesma se dopala autorima naučne fantastike. Ispunila je najmanje tri naslova dela naučne fantastike. Mislim da je to tako zato što se kaže da nam pesme donose novosti iz budućnosti ili prošlosti ili širom sveta zato što nam se čini da nam njihovi šabloni mogu kazati šta u nečijem srcu obitava. Kaže se da pesme mogu privremeno spojiti ljude, što mislim da je tačno i ne zadržava mi se to u glavi samo zato što se rimuje, nego kako se rimuje, jasno i jednostavno na dva i četiri - ..kaži" i ,,put" sa naznakama predosećanja na prvom i trećem - ,,odgovor" i ,,četvrtine" kao da je i sama pesma proradila. To stvarno preuveličava činjenicu da umiremo preterujući sa tempom življenja. Nekoliko godina na Zemlji postaje jedna beseda, jedan dah. To je pesma o usamljenosti - ,,Ja" u pesmi oseća da neće biti povezanosti koja će trajati i to može izgledati kao poziv u pomoć dok ne naiđete na reč ,,pomoć", gde je ovo ,,Ja" koje vam dolazi u susret uzimajući vas za ruku više poput učitelja, duha ili pak ono u šta on veruje. Ne bi bio prvi put da je pesnik napisao pesmu onakvu kakvu je želeo da čuje.
Now, this next poem really changed what I liked and what I read and what I felt I could read as an adult. It might not make any sense to you if you haven't seen it before.
Sad, naredna pesma je stvarno izmenila ono što sam voleo i čitao i što sam slutio da može čitati odrasla osoba. Možda vam ona neće imati nikakvog smisla ako je niste pročitali ranije.
"The Garden"
,,Bašta"
"Oleander: coral
Oleander: koralno crvena boja
from lipstick ads in the 50's.
na reklamama za šminku iz pedesetih.
Fruit of the tree of such knowledge
Plod sa drveta takvog znanja.
To smack (thin air)
Cmoknuti (kratak uzdah)
meaning kiss or hit.
što znači poljubiti ili udariti.
It appears
Pojavljuje se
in the guise of outworn usages
prerušeno u zastarele izraze
because we are bad?
zato što smo mi loši?
Big masculine threat,
Velika muška pretnja,
insinuating and slangy."
insinuacijski i slengom rečeno.
[Rae Armantrout]
[Rej Armantrot]
Now, I found this poem in an anthology of almost equally confusing poems in 1989. I just heard that there were these scandalous writers called Language poets who didn't make any sense, and I wanted to go and see for myself what they were like, and some of them didn't do much for me, but this writer, Rae Armantrout, did an awful lot, and I kept reading her until I felt I knew what was going on, as I do with this poem.
Sad, pronašao sam ovu pesmu u antologiji podjednako zbunjujućih pesama 1989. godine. Tad sam čuo da se radilo o ovim skandaloznim piscima zvanim ,,poetama jezika", što mi nije imalo smisla. Želeo sam da odem i vidim sam kakvi su oni i neki od njih po meni nisu uradili mnogo, ali je spisateljica Rej Armantrot napisala užasno mnogo i nastavio sam da je čitam dokle nisam osetio o čemu se radilo, kao i sa ovom pesmom.
It's about the Garden of Eden and the Fall and the Biblical story of the Fall, in which sex as we know it and death and guilt come into the world at the same time. It's also about how appearances deceive, how our culture can sweep us along into doing and saying things we didn't intend or don't like, and Armantrout's style is trying to help us stop or slow down. "Smack" can mean "kiss" as in air kisses, as in lip-smacking, but that can lead to "smack" as in "hit" as in domestic abuse, because sexual attraction can seem threatening. The red that means fertility can also mean poison. Oleander is poisonous. And outworn usages like "smack" for "kiss" or "hit" can help us see how our unacknowledged assumptions can make us believe we are bad, either because sex is sinful or because we tolerate so much sexism. We let guys tell women what to do. The poem reacts to old lipstick ads, and its edginess about statement, its reversals and halts, have everything to do with resisting the language of ads that want to tell us so easily what to want, what to do, what to think. That resistance is a lot of the point of the poem, which shows me, Armantrout shows me what it's like to hear grave threats and mortal dishonesty in the language of everyday life, and once she's done that, I think she can show other people, women and men, what it's like to feel that way and say to other people, women and men who feel so alienated or so threatened that they're not alone.
Radi se o bašti raja i padu i biblijskoj priči o padu u kojoj se seks, kao što znamo, smrt i krivica pojavljuju u svetu u isto vreme. Takođe se radi o tome kako izgled vara, kako nas naša kultura tera da radimo i govorimo stvari koje nismo nameravali ili nismo voleli, ali stil Armantrotove pokušava da nam pomogne da se zaustavimo ili usporimo. ,,Cmoknuti" može značiti ,,poljubiti" kao pri pozdravljanju ili cmoktanju, ali nas to može navesti da ,,cmoknuti" znači ,,udariti" kada se radi o zlostavljanju u porodici zato što seksualna privlačnost može izgledati preteće. Crvena boja koja simbolizuje plodnost može označavati otrov. Oleander je otrovan. Zastarele upotrebe poput ,,cmoknuti" za ,,poljubiti" ili udariti nam mogu pomoći da uvidimo kako nas naše neprihvaćene prepostavke mogu navesti da poverujemo da smo loši zato što je ili seks grešan ili zato što smo mnogo tolerantni prema seksizmu. Mi dopuštamo momcima da govore ženama šta treba da rade. Pesma reaguje na stare reklame za karmin, njena uznemirenost zbog sadržaja reklama, njeni preokreti i zastajanja se odnose na suprotstavljanje jeziku reklama koje žele da nam olako kažu šta želimo, šta da radimo i mislimo. Otpor predstavlja u velikoj meri smisao ove pesme koja mi pokazuje, Armantrotova mi pokazuje, šta znači čuti smrtonosne pretnje i smrtničko nepoštenje u jeziku svakodnevice. I kada je to jednom uradila, smatram da ona može pokazati drugim ljudima, ženama i muškarcima, šta znači osećati se tako i reći drugim ljudima, ženama i muškarcima, koji osećaju da su veoma otuđeni ili ugroženi da nisu sami.
Now, how do I know that I'm right about this somewhat confusing poem? Well in this case, I emailed the poet a draft of my talk and she said, "Yeah, yeah, that's about it." Yeah. (Laughter) (Applause) But usually, you can't know. You never know. You can't be sure, and that's okay. All we can do we is listen to poems and look at poems and guess and see if they can bring us what we need, and if you're wrong about some part of a poem, nothing bad will happen. Now, this next poem is older than Armantrout's, but a little younger than A. E. Housman's.
Sad, kako znam da sam u pravu u vezi sa ovom pomalo zbunjujućom pesmom? U ovom slučaju sam poslao pesnikinji nacrt mog govora i ona je kazala: ,,Da, da, o tome se radi." Da. (Smeh) (Aplauz) Obično ne znate. Nikada ne znate. Ne možete biti sigurni i to je u redu. Možemo samo da slušamo pesme, gledamo u njih, nagađamo, gledamo da li nam mogu doneti ono što nam je potrebno i ako nismo u pravu u vezi sa nekim delom pesme, ništa se neće loše dogoditi. Sad, naredna pesma je starija od Armantrotove, ali malo mlađa od pesme A. E. Hausmana.
"The Brave Man"
,,Hrabri čovek"
"The sun, that brave man,
,,Sunce, taj hrabri čovek,
Comes through boughs that lie in wait,
prolazi kroz granje što jeste
That brave man.
taj hrabri čovek.
Green and gloomy eyes
Zelene i sumorne oči
In dark forms of the grass
u crnim obrisima trave
Run away.
su pobegle.
The good stars,
Dobre zvezde,
Pale helms and spiky spurs,
sjajni šlemovi i oštre mamuze
Run away.
su pobegli.
Fears of my bed,
Strahovi od moje postelje,
Fears of life and fears of death,
strahovi od života i strahovi od smrti
Run away.
su pobegli.
That brave man comes up
Taj hrabri čovek se pojavio
From below and walks without meditation,
iz dubine i hoda ne razmišljajući
That brave man."
Taj hrabri čovek."
[Wallace Stevens]
[Volas Stivens]
Now, the sun in this poem, in Wallace Stevens' poem, seems so grave because the person in the poem is so afraid. The sun comes up in the morning through branches, dispels the dew, the eyes, on the grass, and defeats stars envisioned as armies. "Brave" has its old sense of showy as well as its modern sense, courage. This sun is not afraid to show his face. But the person in the poem is afraid. He might have been up all night. That is the reveal Stevens saves for that fourth stanza, where run away has become a refrain. This person might want to run away too, but fortified by the sun's example, he might just rise. Stevens saves that sonically odd word "meditation" for the end. Unlike the sun, human beings think. We meditate on past and future, life and death, above and below. And it can make us afraid.
Sad, sunce u ovoj pesmi, u pesmi Volasa Stivensa, izgleda tako ozbiljno zato što je lik u ovoj pesmi veoma uplašen. Sunce se ujutru probija kroz granje, rasteruje rosu i kapljice na travi, pobeđuje zvezde zamišljene kao armije. ,,Hrabri" nosi svoje staro značenje blistavog. kao i svoje savremeno značenje hrabrosti. Sunce se ne boji da pokaže svoje lice. Ali lik u pesmi je uplašen. Možda je bio na nogama cele noći. To je obelodanjenje Stiven sačuvao za četvrtu strofu, gde je beg postalo uzdržavanje. Lik možda želi da takođe pobegne, ali okuražen sunčevim primerom, možda se samo uzdigne. Stivens je sačuvao tu po zvuku čudnu reč ,,meditacija" za kraj. Za razliku od sunca, ljudska bića razmišljaju. Mi posredujemo između prošlosti i budućnosti, života i smrti, ispod i iznad. Može nas to zastrašiti.
Poems, the patterns in poems, show us not just what somebody thought or what someone did or what happened but what it was like to be a person like that, to be so anxious, so lonely, so inquisitive, so goofy, so preposterous, so brave. That's why poems can seem at once so durable, so personal, and so ephemeral, like something inside and outside you at once. The Scottish poet Denise Riley compares poetry to a needle, a sliver of outside I cradle inside, and the American poet Terrance Hayes wrote six poems called "Wind in a Box." One of them asks, "Tell me, what am I going to do when I'm dead?" And the answer is that he'll stay with us or won't stay with us inside us as wind, as air, as words.
Pesme, njeni šabloni, ne pokazuju nam samo kako neko razmišlja, šta je neko uradio ili šta se dogodilo, nego kako je bilo biti osoba poput te, biti veoma očajan, usamljen, ljubopitljiv, smešan, za podsmeh, hrabar. Zato pesme mogu odjednom izgledati veoma trajno, lično, efemerno, poput nečeg što je istovremeno u vama i izvan vas. Škotski pesnik Denis Rajli poredi poeziju sa iglom, mrvicom spoljašnosti koju sam unutra ljuljao, a američki pesnik Terens Hejz je napisao šest pesama koje se zovu ,,Vetar u kutiji". U jedoj od njih pita: ,,Kaži mi šta ću ja činiti kada budem umro?" A odgovor je da će on ostati sa nama ili neće ostati u nama poput vetra, vazduha i reči.
It is easier than ever to find poems that might stay inside you, that might stay with you, from long, long ago, or from right this minute, from far away or from right close to where you live, almost no matter where you live. Poems can help you say, help you show how you're feeling, but they can also introduce you to feelings, ways of being in the world, people, very much unlike you, maybe even people from long, long ago. Some poems even tell you that that is what they can do. That's what John Keats is doing in his most mysterious, perhaps, poem. It's mysterious because it's probably unfinished, he probably left it unfinished, and because it might be meant for a character in a play, but it might just be Keats' thinking about what his own writing, his handwriting, could do, and in it I hear, at least I hear, mortality, and I hear the power of older poetic techniques, and I have the feeling, you might have the feeling, of meeting even for an instant, almost becoming, someone else from long ago, someone quite memorable.
Lakše je nego ikad pronaći pesme koje možda ostaju u vama, koje su sa vama odvajkada ili od upravo ovog minuta, iz dalekog mesta ili nekog koji je veoma blizu onog u kom živite, bez obzira na to gde živite. Pesme vam mogu pomoći da kažete, da vam pokažu kako se osećate, ali vas takođe mogu upoznati sa osećanjima, načinima bivstvovanja u svetu, ljudima koji su veoma različiti od vas možda sa ljudima iz davne prošlosti. Neke pesme vam čak i kažu da je to ono što one mogu da učine. To je ono što Džon Kits čini u svojoj, verovatno, najmisterioznijoj pesmi. Misteriozna je zato što je verovatno nedovršena. Verovatno ju je on ostavio nedovršenom i zato što je možda namenjena liku u predstavi, ali to može biti samo Kitsovo razmišljanje o svom vlastitom delu, njegovom rukopisu, moglo bi biti, a u njemu čujem, makar ja, smrtnost i moć starih pesničkih tehnika i imam osećaj, možda i vi imate osećaj, susreta sa nekim samo na tren, gotovo prikladno nekim drugim iz davne prošlosti, nekim koga vredi upamtiti.
"This living hand, now warm and capable
Ova živa ruka, sad topla i sposobna
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
za najozbiljnija poduhvate bi, kada bi bila hladna
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
i nalazila se u ledenoj tišini grobnice,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
pohodila bi ove dane i vaše noći ispunjene snovima.
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
Tada bi poželeli da vam vlastito srce bude suvo i bez krvi.
So in my veins red life might stream again,
U mojim venama će možda crveni život teći ponovo
And thou be conscience-calm’d -- see here it is --
vaša svest umirena - evo ga,
I hold it towards you."
držim ga pred vama.
Thanks.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)