比利·柯林斯-诗歌入门

Introduction to Poetry

By Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to water-ski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

from The Apple that Astonished Paris, 1996

University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, Ark.

Copyright 1988 by Billy Collins.

《诗歌入门》

比利·柯林斯

我要请他们选取一首诗

举起来迎着光线看

就像看一张彩色幻灯片

或者贴紧耳朵倾听它内部的声喧

我假设是丢进诗里一只老鼠

看他怎样探究出来的路

或者看他怎样走进诗里的房间

摸索着墙上点亮灯光的开关

我想要他们乘着滑水橇

一滑而过穿越诗的水面

对着岸上作者的名字挥手走远

可他们却是另有所选

硬把诗歌捆绑在椅子之上

一番拷打要求它坦白从宽

他们抓起水管紧密抽打

诗的意义必须要揭穿

选自《震惊巴黎的苹果》，1996年