美国国家公共电台 NPR New York's East Village Ushers In New Year With Feast Of Language

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: 

In New York, some 150 poets wailed¹, whispered and rang in the New Year in verse. They were part of the annual New Year's Day marathon reading at the St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. The event is part of the poetry project, which has for the last 50 years supported the work of contemporary poets. Tom Vitale has more.

TOM VITALE, BYLINE²: Bob Rosenthal stood at the podium in the sanctuary³ of St. Mark's yesterday afternoon and read "Ode to Mendacity."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BOB ROSENTHAL: (Reading) If I were not in love with all things untrue, I, too, would be lacerated and drained. But I love a generous falsity.

VITALE: Rosenthal wrote this poem specifically to read at the marathon. He says it's about the nature of truth and lies in the wake of the presidential election.

ROSENTHAL: And about how we all share a part in accepting official lies and being controlled by them. We all have to own a part of whatever the results of the election mean to us.

VITALE: The New Year's Day Marathon poetry reading is a tradition that dates back to 1974. It was the brainchild of the poetry project's co-founder⁴ Anne Waldman.

ANNE WALDMAN: It's this idea of very naked, open, people speaking from their heart. It's the new year. You want to come with some kind of vision of what it's going to be like.

VITALE: The poetry project archived those visions and donated its recordings⁵ to the Library of Congress. Two years after the New Year's Day event launched, Ed Sanders began with a prescient call to arms.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ED SANDERS: (Reading) This is the age of investigation⁶, and every citizen must investigate, for the pallid⁷ tracks of guilt⁸ and death, slight as they are, suffuse⁹ upon the retentive¹⁰ electromagnetic data retrieval systems of our era.

VITALE: Sanders was followed by composer John Cage reading a work derived¹¹ from excerpts¹² of Henry David Thoreau's journals randomly¹³ arranged by chance.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JOHN CAGE: (Reading) Wasps¹⁴ are building summer squashes, saw a fish hawk¹⁵ when I hear this. Both bushes and trees are thinly leaved, few ripe ones on sandy banks.

VITALE: Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Spalding Gray, Amiri Baraka, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith and Philip Glass have all performed at the event. The first reader at this year's marathon, Marcella Durand, says poetry is a tool for reflection at the beginning of a new year.

MARCELLA DURAND: Poetry is mysterious, and it's not quantifiable. It's not countable¹⁶. It's a counterweight to all the pressures and consumerism in our everyday lives. It's another dimension that reminds you that life can be richer and fuller and quieter and deeper.

VITALE: The late poet William Carlos Williams wrote, it is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably¹⁷ every day for lack of what is found there. Marathon founder Anne Waldman says that in the so-called post-truth fog of 2017, we need poetry now more than ever.

WALDMAN: There's talk of, this will be a good time for poetry, you know, when things get darker and stranger and your very speech is being questioned and the sense of trusting that human thing.

VITALE: Anne Waldman says the role of poetry is to wake the world up to itself or, as Ed Sanders put it four decades ago...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SANDERS: This is the poets' era, and we should all walk crinkle-toed upon the smooth, cold thrill of Botticelli's shell. Happy New Year.

VITALE: For NPR News, I'm Tom Vitale in New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF MISSION VENICE SONG, "NIGHTMARES ON WAX")

1 wailed   

v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She wailed over her father's remains. 她对着父亲的遗体嚎啕大哭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The women of the town wailed over the war victims. 城里的妇女为战争的死难者们痛哭。 来自辞典例句

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 sanctuary   

n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区

参考例句：

• There was a sanctuary of political refugees behind the hospital.医院后面有一个政治难民的避难所。
• Most countries refuse to give sanctuary to people who hijack aeroplanes.大多数国家拒绝对劫机者提供庇护。

4 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

5 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

6 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

7 pallid   

adj.苍白的，呆板的

参考例句：

• The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face.月亮从云朵后面钻出来，照着尸体那张苍白的脸。
• His dry pallid face often looked gaunt.他那张干瘪苍白的脸常常显得憔悴。

8 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。

9 suffuse   

v.(色彩等)弥漫，染遍

参考例句：

• A dull red flush suffused Selby's face.塞尔比的脸庞泛起了淡淡的红晕。
• The evening sky was suffused with crimson.黄昏时分天空红霞灿灿。

10 retentive   

v.保留的，有记忆的；adv.有记性地，记性强地；n.保持力

参考例句：

• Luke had an amazingly retentive memory.卢克记忆力惊人。
• He is a scholar who has wide learning and a retentive memory.他是一位博闻强记的学者。

11 derived   

vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• Many English words are derived from Latin and Greek. 英语很多词源出于拉丁文和希腊文。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derived his enthusiasm for literature from his father. 他对文学的爱好是受他父亲的影响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 excerpts   

n.摘录，摘要( excerpt的名词复数 )；节选（音乐，电影）片段

参考例句：

• Some excerpts from a Renaissance mass are spatchcocked into Gluck's pallid Don Juan music. 一些文艺复光时期的弥撒的选节被不适当地加入到了格鲁克平淡无味的唐璜音乐中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is editing together excerpts of some of his films. 他正在将自己制作的一些电影的片断进行剪辑合成。 来自辞典例句

13 randomly   

adv.随便地，未加计划地

参考例句：

• Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内，分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
• Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句

14 wasps   

黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人

参考例句：

• There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
• We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中，而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中

15 hawk   

n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员

参考例句：

• The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it.鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
• The hawk snatched the chicken and flew away.老鹰叼了小鸡就飞走了。

16 countable   

adj.可数的，可以计算的

参考例句：

• The word "person" is a countable noun.person这个词是个可数名词。
• Countable nouns have singular and plural forms.可数名词有单数和复数之分。

17 miserably   

adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地

参考例句：

• The little girl was wailing miserably. 那小女孩难过得号啕大哭。
• It was drizzling, and miserably cold and damp. 外面下着毛毛细雨，天气又冷又湿，令人难受。 来自《简明英汉词典》