标题: The Story of Our Lives, with the Monument and the Late Hour - 书评 [打印本页] 作者: 小书虫 时间: 2013-5-5 17:22 标题: The Story of Our Lives, with the Monument and the Late Hour - 书评 Mark Strand is the author of nine books of poems, including Blizzard of One , winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize. He was the Poet Laureate of the United States in 1990, and currently teaches at th ...
书评内容会自动聚合在本帖中作者: adieud 时间: 2013-8-21 06:17
到底该不该给这本书打5星，我犹豫了好一阵。这本2002年出版的诗集，是斯特兰德70年代三本诗集的合集：The Story of Our Lives, The Monument, The Late Hour. 其中的The Monument，一本似乎迷失在寻找自我的、博尔赫斯式的图书馆中的散文组诗，极其虚无而令人厌倦。斯特兰德引用的50多处诗人、哲人的散句比他自己的沉思更清晰。
但是这本诗集仍然当之无愧一本极其重要而优秀的诗集。
第一本诗集The Story of Our Lives中，
Elegy for My Father大概国内读者并不熟知，但这首6部分的长诗，和W. D. Snodgrass的"Heart's Needle" (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15302) 一样，堪称当代诗歌中最优秀的沉痛的诗。
第二部本所选的四首诗相对不那么让人印象深刻，但也都算好诗。
第三部分的The Story of Our Lives应该是大家很熟悉的杰作了。这首三部分的长诗最有霍普的画的味道，那种空洞、茫然若失的生活的滋味。诗的结构很有意思，像从一个梦堕入另一个更深的梦，梦的台阶通向不同的转折，引向不同的平台和窗外的世界，但总归要回到继续下去的更深的梦的坠落中。
and called
and keep on calling
from a place
beyond,
beyond love,
where nothing,
everything,
wants to be born.
给女儿的最后一节：
But tonight
it is different
Afraid of the dark
in which we drift or vanish altogether,
I imagine a light
that would not let us stray too far apart,
a secret moon or mirror
a sheet of paper,
something you could carry
in the dark
when I am away.
这也是我自己每每暗自祈祷的心念。
第二部分From the Long Sad Party，除了No Particular Day和Exiles这两首诗以外，其余每一首都让人赞叹。
From the Long Sad Party
The Late Hour
About a Man
For Her
So You Say
这几首都是杰作。特别是前两首，让人心碎。
Seven Days，一个爱的创世纪一周，也算好。
An Old Man Awake in His Own Death，写得很好，但阴沉，我不是很喜欢。
第三部分Poor North的六首中，我喜欢的有
Where Are the Waters of Childhood?
The House in French VIllage，写给毕肖普的，斯特兰德也在加拿大出生，这首诗写得毕肖普童年的家乡”大村“附近。
The Garden，写给沃伦的。
第四部分Night Pieces是两首诗组成的，其中第二首仿巴西诗人Carlos Drummond de Andrade（参见：http://www.douban.com/note/254035918/）。作为诗集收尾的一首，它反常地以一种感恩地呼唤意图驱散笼罩了我三天的斯特兰德的灰雾和钝痛，它也确实让人看到如此阴郁的一个诗人是什么在支撑着他：
这首诗的第二部分：
Night Piece
2
(after Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
It is night. I feel it is night
not because darkness has fallen
(what do I care about darkness falling)
but because down in myself the shouting
has stopped, has given up.
I feel we are night,
that we sink into dark
and dissolve into night.
I feel it is night in the wind,
night in the sea, in the stone,
in the harp of the angel who sings to me.
And turning on lights wouldn't help,
and taking my hand wouldn't help. Not now.
It is night where Jess lies down,
where Phil and Fran are asleep,
night for the Simics, night for the Baileys,
night for Dan, for Richard, for Sandy.
For all my friends it is night
and in all my friends it is night.
It is night, not death, it is night
filling up sleep without dreams,
without stars. It is night,
not pain or rest, it is night,
the perfection of night.
It is night that changes
now in the first glimpse of day,
in the ribbons of rising light,
and the world assembles itself once more.
In the park someone is running,
someone is walking his dog.
For whatever reason, people are waking.
Someone is cooking, someone
is bringing The Times to the door.
Streets are filling with light.
My friends are rubbing the sleep from their eyes.
Jules is rubbing the sleep from her eyes,
and I sit at the table
drinking my morning coffee.
All that we lost at night is back.
Thank you, faithful things!
Thank you, world!
To know that the city is still there,
that the woods are still there,
and the houses, and the humming of traffic,
and the slow cows grazing in the field;
that the earth continues to turn
and time hasn't stopped,
that we come back whole
to suck the sweet marrow of day,
thank you, bright morning,
thank you, thank you!