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译者 | 秦尊璐、游心泉、彼得·休斯
国际诗人评论
彼得·休斯
2023年7月于翁布里亚
This selection of poems explores and celebrates the effects of snow on the landscape and also the effects of time on memory and human relationships. The first poem is ‘The Posture of Time’ by Bo Mu. Musing on a list of addresses, phone numbers and email contacts, the speaker laments the growing gaps between old friends. The poem expresses regret for the ways we lose touch with each other. Changes of various sorts and the relentless passage of time make the distances between us and our friends ever greater.
out of touch so long, it’s as if we’d never met
winter comes a little earlier each year
one hand clutching a snowflake
That final image of trying to hold a snowflake gives us a powerful symbol of the relentless march of time, the transience of things and the fragility of human experience.
The second poem, ‘My Winter’, is also by Bo Mu. The poet anticipates the coming of snow and the changes it will bring to the landscape. The poem also reflects on how our present perspective constantly changes how we see the past. The poem is set at night and time seems to stand still when the speaker is unable to sleep. But time rolls on and the poem ends with an exhortation to create, to move forwards and to make the most of time. We must not accept the blankness of forgetfulness or inactivity. We must not accept a blank page:
My heart is bright, there is just the one window of warmth
this winter as we wait for snow to gleam like moonlight
and we reject another empty sheet of paper
Zhang Zixuan’s ‘Insomnia on a Night of Snow’ shares some of the themes of the previous poem, as the title suggests. Sleeplessness makes the speaker feel insubstantial, like a ghost of a real self. And the self feels as though it has disappeared into the landscape, under the snow, erased by whiteness. The effect of insomnia and snow is to drain the speaker’s willpower and sense of agency, as captured in the final stanza:
I seem to have been waiting
for the wind to call me through the window –
snow can be my pledge
‘Snowy Land’ by Lu Ye begins with a wonderful line that immediately sweeps the reader into the snowy landscape: ‘dressed in the clothes of the wind’. Snow makes the landscape look like a new country, smoothing over the rough patches that were usually visible and making everything seem clean. But the snow has also made the characteristic features of the place disappear. No living things can be seen on the ground, just the magpies flying by. There are no tracks by humans, vehicles or animals – this may seem a beautiful ‘celebration of absence’ but it is also a loss of all the sights, sounds and smells of the countryside and town. With so much buried, the speaker’s attention is drawn to the night sky and the lights along the roads, generating the memorable line ‘at night the street lamps hold hands with stars’. The poem concludes by insisting that ‘white’ and ‘empty’ are not words that should be used here. Rather the scene and the poem should be seen as the results of a profound meditation.
Chen Yabing's ‘The Quiet Coast’ tells of an old man visiting a tranquil stretch of coast where a river makes its way into the sea. The quietness of the coast is similar to the emotional peacefulness of a man who has lost the wilder energies and emotions of his younger days. He remembers aspects of his childhood which were also spent in close proximity to nature. So although, like the river, he is approaching the end, there is also a sense of things turning full circle as he comes back to the calm immediacy of his childhood days playing with stones and water, and listening to the sounds of the insects in his mother’s garden. The beautiful conclusion provides a very positive vision of the final stages of a life, a ‘coming home’:
resting against the car, drinking, remembering some faces
watching fishing boats come slowly home from sea
国际诗歌评论人 | 彼得·休斯
“汉诗英译”栏目自2018年10月启动至今，现已完成第一阶段的翻译工作，与美国同道出版社合作，从《诗刊》和中国诗歌网“每日好诗”中精选800余首诗歌译成英文，推动当代中文诗歌走向世界。
从2022年4月起，中国诗歌网与剑桥康河出版社合作开展汉诗英译工作。
翻译团队为剑桥康河诗社，它是英国剑桥康河出版社(Cam Rivers Publishing) 旗下的诗歌翻译与编辑团队，由英国国家学术院院士、剑桥大学社会人类学教授、剑桥徐志摩诗歌艺术节创始人艾伦·麦克法兰(Alan Macfarlane) 担任主席。团队由英国资深诗人与文学编辑彼得·休斯 (Peter Hughes)、露西·汉姆尔顿 (Lucy Hamilton)，以及其他多位毕业于剑桥大学和其他知名高校的译者与学者组成。
“汉诗英译”每期发布五首汉英对照诗歌，并附国际诗人的点评，同步在中英两国推出，欢迎各位诗友关注和批评！
编辑：王傲霏, 二审：曼曼， 终审：金石开
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