美国国家公共电台 NPR Acclaimed Poet John Ashbery Dies At 90

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

One of the most acclaimed¹ poets of the 20th century has died. John Ashbery won every major prize, including a Pulitzer and a National Book Award, along with a so-called MacArthur genius grant for more than 20 volumes of poetry. He died yesterday from natural causes at the age of 90. Tom Vitale has this appreciation³.

TOM VITALE, BYLINE⁴: John Ashbery's experimental, modernist poetry often confounded readers. But in 1987, Ashbery told me the way to read his poetry was not to analyze⁵ it but, in his words, to bathe in it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

JOHN ASHBERY: What I get out of poetry when I read it is just the pure pleasure part of how it ripples⁶ in front of you. It's something you want to get close to and roll around in (laughter).

VITALE: In his work, Ashbery paired colloquial⁷ speech with disjointed, dream-like imagery. His poem "Some Money" begins like this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

ASHBERY: (Reading) I said I am awkward. I said we make fools of our lives for a little money and a coat. The great tree once grown passes over. I said you can catch all kinds of weird⁸ activities.

KARIN ROFFMAN: The next thought is not the thought that you would have expected. The next word isn't the word that you would have expected. And it's better for it.

VITALE: Karin Roffman is the author of a new biography of John Ashbery called "The Songs We Know Best." She says by not writing confessional poems about his own life, Ashbery captured a more universal experience.

ROFFMAN: He's managed to explain the experience of being alive but in a way that's both familiar and unfamiliar⁹. The experience of feeling like an outsider or the feeling of being an exile is something that everybody feels. And he was so precise about understanding what it was like to feel that way and how to express that feeling and how to express it in a way that suggested that people could survive it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

ASHBERY: (Reading) Why have all the windows darkened? The laurel burned its image into the sky like smoke. All was gold and shiny in the queen's parlor¹⁰. In the pigsty¹¹ outside, it was winter, however.

VITALE: Rural imagery is a recurring¹² theme in Ashbery's poetry. He was born in 1927 in a small town near Rochester, N.Y., where he grew up on his father's orchard¹³. As a boy, he took an interest in the surrealist art of the 1930s. Two decades later, he was living in New York City, where he was influenced by the ideas and music of John Cage and the abstract expressionist painters. He said he always wanted his own poetry to mean something.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

ASHBERY: I don't believe there's any point in writing poetry that's not going to be read. And if it doesn't join up with a reader at some point, then there's no point in having done it.

(Reading) No pen mightier¹⁴ than this, said the object, as though to ward² off a step to kiss my sweetheart in the narrow alley¹⁵ before it was wartime. And the cold ended on that note.

VITALE: John Ashbury died yesterday morning at his home in Hudson, N.Y. For NPR News, I'm Tom Vitale.

1 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

2 ward   

n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开

参考例句：

• The hospital has a medical ward and a surgical ward.这家医院有内科病房和外科病房。
• During the evening picnic,I'll carry a torch to ward off the bugs.傍晚野餐时，我要点根火把，抵挡蚊虫。

3 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。

4 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。

5 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

6 ripples   

逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The moon danced on the ripples. 月亮在涟漪上舞动。
• The sea leaves ripples on the sand. 海水在沙滩上留下了波痕。

7 colloquial   

adj.口语的，会话的

参考例句：

• It's hard to understand the colloquial idioms of a foreign language.外语里的口头习语很难懂。
• They have little acquaintance with colloquial English. 他们对英语会话几乎一窍不通。

8 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

9 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

10 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

11 pigsty   

n.猪圈，脏房间

参考例句：

• How can you live in this pigsty?你怎能这住在这样肮脏的屋里呢？
• We need to build a new pigsty for the pigs.我们需修建一个新猪圈。

12 recurring   

adj.往复的，再次发生的

参考例句：

• This kind of problem is recurring often. 这类问题经常发生。
• For our own country, it has been a time for recurring trial. 就我们国家而言，它经过了一个反复考验的时期。

13 orchard   

n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场

参考例句：

• My orchard is bearing well this year.今年我的果园果实累累。
• Each bamboo house was surrounded by a thriving orchard.每座竹楼周围都是茂密的果园。

14 mightier   

adj. 强有力的，强大的，巨大的 adv. 很，极其

参考例句：

• But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. 但是，这种组织总是重新产生，并且一次比一次更强大，更坚固，更有力。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言
• Do you believe that the pen is mightier than the sword? 你相信笔杆的威力大于武力吗？

15 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。