VOA慢速英语2014 Americans Chose Their Favorite Poems 美国人最喜欢的诗歌

Americans Chose Their Favorite Poems 美国人最喜欢的诗歌

From VOA Learning English, welcome to This is America.  I'm Steve Ember.  April is National Poetry Month, and this week, Kelly Jean Kelly brings us some of the poems that Americans like best. Come along with us, on a journey through rhyme!

欢迎收听VOA学英语美国专栏节目。我是史蒂夫·恩贝尔。4月是美国诗歌月。本周凯·莉珍·凯莉带来了美国人最爱的一些诗。让我们开始品读这些韵律吧！

April is National Poetry Month in the United States.  The Academy of American Poets started the celebration in 1996.  The goal was to help more Americans add poetry to their lives.

四月是美国的全国诗歌月。美国诗人学会1996年开始庆祝诗歌月。目的是帮助更多美国人将诗歌引入生活中。

The academy chose April as National Poetry Month because of a line in a poem.  T.S. Eliot called April “the cruelest month” in his poem “The Waste Land.”  And many Americans think April is the cruelest month.  They must pay their income taxes by April 15th.

美国诗人学会选择四月作为美国诗歌月，是因为一句诗。T·S·艾略特（全名：托马斯·斯特尔那斯·艾略特）在他的诗歌“荒原”中，将四月称作“最残酷的月份”。而且许多美国人也认为四月是最残酷的月份。

National Poetry Month brings together publishers, booksellers, poetry groups, libraries, schools and poets around the country.  They encourage people to write, read, and listen to poetry.  In the southern state of Florida, the O, Miami Poetry Festival tries to bring a poem to every one of the 2.5 million people who live in the area.  The group has dropped poems out of airplanes, sewn them into clothes, and put them on every bus in the city.

美国诗歌月由全国的出版协会、图书代理商、诗歌团体、图书馆组织、教育团体和诗人共同发起。他们鼓励人们撰写、赏读和倾听诗歌。在佛罗里达州南部，O，迈阿密诗歌节尝试将诗歌推广给250万名居民。组织者将诗歌用飞机空投、缝在衣服上、发放到城市的每辆巴士上。

Poetry is very popular in the United States.  America even has a chief poet, known as the Poet Laureate.  Robert Pinsky was the Poet Laureate from 1997 until 2000.  He started the Favorite Poem Project, to find out which poems Americans liked best.  Thousands of Americans wrote to Mr. Pinsky about their favorite poems.  He chose 200 poems by poets from the United States and from many other countries.

诗歌风靡美国。美国有首席诗人，较知名的有罗伯特·平斯基。他在1997年到2000年被连续评为美国“桂冠诗人”。 他发起了“最受欢迎的诗作”工程，来选出那些美国人最喜爱的诗作。成千上万的美国人写信告诉平斯基先生他们最喜爱的诗作。最终平斯基先生从美国和其他国家的诗作中选出了200首。

The poems are included in a book called “Americans’ Favorite Poems.”  It was edited by Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz.  We will read five of poems from the book by American poets.

这些诗作被收录到一本名为“美国人最喜欢的诗歌”的书中。罗伯特·平斯基和玛吉·迪茨为主编。让我们一起欣赏5首美国诗作。

Oglala Sioux Poet Describes Power of World as Circle

奥格拉-拉苏族诗作描述世界是圆的

Our first poem is by Black Elk 1.  He was a famous spiritual leader of the Oglala Lakota Native American tribe.  He took part in two famous battles against American troops during the late 1800s.  At the end of his life, he told about a number of his tribe’s ceremonies and ideas about life.  Among these was the poem called

第一首诗的作者是黑麋鹿。他是美国土著部落奥格拉-拉苏族的著名精神领袖。十九世纪末期，他参加了两次抗击美国军队的著名战役。晚年，他记录了许多部落仪式和对生命的感悟。其中一个诗作叫做

“Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.”

“Everything the Power of the World does

is done in a circle.  The sky is round,

and I have heard that the earth is round

like a ball, and so are all the stars.

The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.

Birds make their nests in circles,

For theirs is the same religion as ours.

The sun comes forth 2 and goes down again

in a circle.  The moon does the same,

And both are round. Even the seasons

form a great circle in their changing,

and always come back again to where they were.

The life of man is a circle from childhood to childhood,

and so it is in everything where power moves.”

Our next poem chosen as one of Americans’ favorites is by Rita Dove.  She was the youngest person and the first African-American ever named Poet Laureate of the United States.  She served from 1993 to 1995. 

Rita Dove is a professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.  Many of her poems are based on the lives of her family, especially her grandparents.  Dove often writes about the experience of being a mother, like in this poem, called “Daystar.”

“She wanted a little room for thinking:

but she saw diapers steaming on the line,

a doll slumped 3 behind the door.

So she lugged 4 a chair behind the garage to sit out the children’s naps.

Sometimes there were things to watch –

the pinched armor of a vanished cricket,

a floating maple 5 leaf.  Other days

she stared until she was assured

when she closed her eyes

she’d see only her own vivid blood.

She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared

pouting 6 from the top of the stairs.

And just what was mother doing

out back with the field mice?  Why,

building a palace.  Later

that night when Thomas rolled over and

lurched into her, she would open her eyes

and think of the place that was hers

for an hour – where

she was nothing,

pure nothing, in the middle of the day.”

Robert Frost Well Represented in Collection

Robert Frost was perhaps the most popular and beloved of twentieth century American poets.  So it is not surprising that six of his poems are included in the book “Americans’ Favorite Poems.”

He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times.  He often wrote about the land and people of the northeastern American states. 

His poems combine images of nature with ideas about how to live one’s life.  This one is called “The Road Not Taken.”  It is one of his most famous poems.

“Two roads diverged 7 in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent 8 in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy 9 and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

Langston Hughes - A Major Figure in Harlem Renaissance 10

Langston Hughes published more than 30 books.  He started with poetry and then expanded into novels, short stories, plays and personal memories. 

He was one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.  During the Harlem Renaissance, African-American literature, art and music grew quickly in New York City. 

Langston Hughes continued writing into the 1960s.  His work often spoke 11 plainly about the difficult lives of black people living in big cities.

This poem is called “Mother to Son.”

“Well son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks 12 in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor –

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now –

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin,’

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”

Edna Saint Vincent Millay’s poetry is also included in “Americans’ Favorite Poems.”  She lived during the first half of the twentieth century.  She was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1923. 

She was also famous for the free way she lived her life and for her many lovers.  Here is one of her poems about love, called “Sonnet 24.”

“When you, that at this moment are to me

Dearer than words on paper, shall depart,

And be no more the warder of my heart,

Whereof again myself shall hold the key;

And bed no more – what now you seem to be –

The sun, from which all excellences 13 start

In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart 14

Of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea;

I shall remember only of this hour –

And weep somewhat, as now you see me weep –

The pathos 15 of your love, that, like a flower,

Fearful of death yet amorous 16 of sleep,

Droops 17 for a moment and beholds 18, dismayed,

The wind whereon its petals 19 shall be laid.”

Our program was written by Shelley Gollust, and presented by Kelly Jean Kelly.  Our poetry readers were Doug Johnson, Pat Bodnar, Shep O’Neal, Barbara Klein, and yours truly, Steve Ember.