追逐Twichell
参观诗人
Long a force in both the poetry and publishing worlds, 追逐Twichell has been described as a writer of “dazzling and profound imagination.” She is author of six books, most recently 狗的语言. 她的新 & 选择名为 Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in April 2010. She is also the translator, with Tony K. 斯图尔特, 上帝的爱人 by Rabindranath Tagore, and co-editor of The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach.
A native of New Haven, Connecticut, she received a B.A. from Trinity College (Hartford) and an M.F.A. from the prestigious University of Iowa Writers Workshop. 回到东海岸, Twichell settled in the Northampton area and worked with Barry Moser as printer, 装订商, and designer at Pennyroyal Press. In 1983 Twichell began a decades-long career as a teacher of creative writing, 首先在汉普郡学院, followed by the University of Alabama, 戈达德大学, 沃伦威尔逊学院, 和普林斯顿大学. In 1999, 她创立了奥萨博出版社, a non-profit independent literary press that she operated until it was acquired by Copper Canyon Press in 2009.
Managing to be both meditative and startling, Twichell explores the nature of the human mind and the urgencies of our imperiled natural world with what Boston Review called “fierce psychic inquiry and tremendous lyrical gifts.” She is praised by writers as diverse as Yusef Komunyakaa, 玛克辛昆明, 还有比尔·麦基本, who noted that she writes with “utter honesty, 和庄严的辉煌, about the overriding fact of our brief moment on earth,” calling these “necessary poems.”
A practicing Buddhist and student in the Mountains and Rivers Order at Zen Mountain Monastery, Twichell’s poems reflect her spiritual practice within the ancient tradition of Basho and Dogen, as well as the contemporary company of Gary Snyder and W.S. Merwin. She follows these rules when writing poems: “Tell the truth. 没有任何装饰. 记住死亡.” Twichell explains that for her, poetry “is an expression of not only the way that I perceive the world, but the way I perceive human consciousness in the world…Not being able to pursue it would be like suddenly being unable to speak.” And: “诗歌不是擦窗户. 它打碎了玻璃.”
Twichell has received numerous awards for her work, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, 艺术家基金会, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in upstate New York with her husband, the novelist Russell Banks.
选择诗歌
I peer into Japanese characters
进入遥远的建筑
从思想的树上砍下来.
In the late afternoon a small bird
shakes a branch, lets drop a white splash.
在风中，在雨中，
the delicate wire cage glistens,
没有甜味.
诗歌不是擦窗户.
它打碎了玻璃.
From THE SNOW WATCHER (Copper Canyon Press, 1998)
最心爱的身体
of my childhood was Johns Brook,
its bed of ancient broken pears,
冰酒倒出
几个世纪以来.
透过有漏洞的椭圆形口罩
I entered its alcoves and grand halls,
its precincts of green-brown light,
the light of my infant thinking.
在鲦鱼般明亮的吼声中
I saw the place where life and art
meet under water, stone to stone,
with the sunken treasure and trash.
小溪的声音
是房子的声音，
the pools of the kitchen and bedrooms
A galaxy away it would still be
我的睡眠背景.
云落在地上，
great gloomy rooms among the trees,
溪边的暗室，
深水池教堂.
你一进门
你独自一人在里面，
都是结实的梯子
and gray stairs, stones magnified
侧身鳟鱼，
现在一切都消失了，
彩虹和小溪，
每个池子一个大的，
鱼鳃喜欢新鲜的伤口.
I dove into the flume’s mystery,
没有触底的地方
或者一直往下看
因为至少有一半
总是在阴影中.
这就像学习一个房间
拿着蜡烛
从一个角落到另一个角落，
looking for God to see if He, too,
我们清醒地倾听着
to the river crumpling and erasing,
执行法律.
我找到了一个冷漠的神，
谁命令我回答
所有的问题都是我自己问的.
英语
也是一条美丽的河，
full of driftwood and detritus,
骨头上挂着小饰品，
scant beaches more stones then sand.
And up on the hills it’s the wind
触摸被唾弃的杜松
by the cows, its thistle sharpness,
还有小鹿的蹄子
土狼留下的，
在他们的眼皮底下.
From DOG LANGUAGE (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)
我知道我必须放弃什么.
It’s not the flashy green commotion
在这个八月的傍晚，
花园变黑，喝酒，
or the dogs unsettled by thunder
我还听不见. 这不是茶壶的问题
不断与自己争吵，
or the snow’s beauty coming from far away
to cover the beauty now ascending
放弃没有意义
what will be taken from me anyway,
first youth, now middle age departing,
东部林地遭到破坏
因酸和枯萎病，
亲爱的天空变蓝变黑，
雪松蜡翼俯冲
低低的在池塘上觅食，
为他们的航行增肥
去一个没有我们的世界.
我知道我需要知道的.
在我面前没有路可走.
我走到哪里，它就跟到哪里.
我把它带到修道院，
where I sit steadfast in the very early hours,
a pure Zen Yankee candle, my flame a vow
to save all sentient beings, beginning with myself.
I also take it into the vast playgrounds
of distraction, confusion, intoxication, desire,
drugged by anxiety and second guesses,
and deep into television’s alternative wilderness.
我发动了一场多么美丽的战争，
两极等于磁体，
天造地设，结婚了
我自己的完美瘫痪.
Present then absent then present,
我要么抑制这一刻，要么不抑制.
这是一个持续的决定.
The waxwings don’t decide which insects
to eat tonight, nor wind pause to think before
clouding the mirror of the trees.
他们没有留下纪念碑.
Me, I’m always forsaking one place for another,
breaking branches to mark my way home,
taking leave of the tall grasses
heavy with seed-heads I crush underfoot,
birches vivid in storm-light, dogs just groomed,
fearful of thunder under the desk.
我闻到了大蒜味. 罗素在做腌料
for the trout he’ll grill beneath an umbrella.
I realize, then forget, then realize that mind
is an ax that splits the one continuous moment.
闪电! 害怕狗! 晚餐! 布鲁克音乐!
我的目光回到池塘，
the bluestone slates I laid in the low places,
rain-shining their way to the water.
From HORSES WHERE THE ANSWERS SHOULD HAVE BEEN (Copper Canyon Press, 2010)