暗黑系桂冠诗人Mark Strand去世# LeisureTime - 读书听歌看电影
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刚读到一条新闻，住在纽约的耄耋诗人Mark Strand去年11月底去世。他曾在1990年获
得美国桂冠诗人称号，1999年以诗集《Blizzard of One》获得普利策诗歌奖。《纽约
时报》文绉绉地说他的诗 “imparted an unsettling sense of personal
dislocation”，就是评论家Richard Howard说的“the working of the divided self
”——那其实是说这位诗人精分错乱啦……
他在1964年出版的第一本诗集叫《Sleeping With One Eye Open》，够瘆。其中有他最
被广泛引用的代表诗《Keeping Things Whole》：
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
《纽约时报》引经据典地评论：“Echoes of Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop
could be heard in his compressed, highly specific language and wintry cast
of mind, as could painters like Giorgio de Chirico, René Magritte and
Edward Hopper, whose moody clarity and mysterious shadows dovetailed with Mr
. Strand’s own sensibility.” 另一位大学教授、评论人David Kirby说得更有感觉：
“He makes you see how trivial the things of this world are, and how
expansive the self is, once you unhook it from flat-screen TVs and iPhones
… We learn what a big party solitude is.”
Mark Strand 1934年出生于加拿大Prince Edward Island，从小跟随家庭迁徙于加拿大
、美国、墨西哥、秘鲁等多地。1957年从Ohio的Antioch College本科毕业，1959年又
在耶鲁读了个绘画的本科学位。本想当画家，但兴趣日渐转移。1962年他从著名的Iowa
Writers’ Workshop拿了个硕士，开始艰苦创业。70年代后逐渐成名。他自言其诗主
要关注“the self, the edge of the self, and the edge of the world … that
shadow land between self and reality”。批评者认为他过度沉迷于death, despair
and dissolution等暗黑主题，他答曰 “I find them evenly lit”。
这位毕生吟咏absence, negation, death的诗人多次自撰墓志铭，最有名的是收在1970
年的诗集《Darker》里的一首《The Remains》：
I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.
What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.
My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.
原新闻链接：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/nyregion/mark-strand-80-dies-
得美国桂冠诗人称号，1999年以诗集《Blizzard of One》获得普利策诗歌奖。《纽约
时报》文绉绉地说他的诗 “imparted an unsettling sense of personal
dislocation”，就是评论家Richard Howard说的“the working of the divided self
”——那其实是说这位诗人精分错乱啦……
他在1964年出版的第一本诗集叫《Sleeping With One Eye Open》，够瘆。其中有他最
被广泛引用的代表诗《Keeping Things Whole》：
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
《纽约时报》引经据典地评论：“Echoes of Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop
could be heard in his compressed, highly specific language and wintry cast
of mind, as could painters like Giorgio de Chirico, René Magritte and
Edward Hopper, whose moody clarity and mysterious shadows dovetailed with Mr
. Strand’s own sensibility.” 另一位大学教授、评论人David Kirby说得更有感觉：
“He makes you see how trivial the things of this world are, and how
expansive the self is, once you unhook it from flat-screen TVs and iPhones
… We learn what a big party solitude is.”
Mark Strand 1934年出生于加拿大Prince Edward Island，从小跟随家庭迁徙于加拿大
、美国、墨西哥、秘鲁等多地。1957年从Ohio的Antioch College本科毕业，1959年又
在耶鲁读了个绘画的本科学位。本想当画家，但兴趣日渐转移。1962年他从著名的Iowa
Writers’ Workshop拿了个硕士，开始艰苦创业。70年代后逐渐成名。他自言其诗主
要关注“the self, the edge of the self, and the edge of the world … that
shadow land between self and reality”。批评者认为他过度沉迷于death, despair
and dissolution等暗黑主题，他答曰 “I find them evenly lit”。
这位毕生吟咏absence, negation, death的诗人多次自撰墓志铭，最有名的是收在1970
年的诗集《Darker》里的一首《The Remains》：
I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.
What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.
My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.
原新闻链接：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/nyregion/mark-strand-80-dies-
