美国国家公共电台 NPR Protesting Through Poetry

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

What are the different ways that Americans protest? Our co-host Rachel Martin has been asking.

RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE¹: Here's Martin Luther King Jr. in 1955 in Montgomery, Ala.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest.

UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Yeah.

(APPLAUSE)

MARTIN: You hear that quote, and you may conjure² up images of marches, sit-ins and boycotts³. But protest also happens through language itself. Kwame Alexander joins us again to talk about the connection between poetry and protest.

Hi, Kwame.

KWAME ALEXANDER: How are you, Rachel?

MARTIN: I'm well. Thanks.

He is of course the New York Times best-selling author of "Solo," which received a 2018 NAACP Image Award nomination⁴ for outstanding youth literary work. Kwame, you have brought another voice to our poetry conversation. Do you want to introduce our special guest?

ALEXANDER: I would be honored to. She's a professor at Virginia Tech, the author of the latest collection of poetry called "A Good Cry" - Nikki Giovanni.

NIKKI GIOVANNI: Kwame is my literary son, so it's wonderful to hear his voice.

MARTIN: (Laughter) Well, thanks so much for being part of our conversation today.

GIOVANNI: Oh, thank you.

MARTIN: I'm going to start off by asking Kwame to describe how you see the connection between poetry and protest.

ALEXANDER: When I was 10 years old, I was living in Brooklyn. My father was the headmaster of my school. And one day, we woke up and he says we're going to march over the Brooklyn Bridge. He said, we're going to march against police brutality⁵. But I was afraid that Mayor Koch was going to open up the bridge, and we were all going to fall in and die. This is what my 10-year-old mind thought.

MARTIN: Right.

ALEXANDER: But they dragged me to this march. We're facing off with police on horses, in riot gear. And I'm crying. And all of a sudden, we start singing. (Chanting) We're fired up. We can't take no more. We're fired up. We can't take no more.

And this was sort of the first moment in my life where I realized that language could empower you.

GIOVANNI: I'm of another generation. My generation grew up in segregation⁶. So what I saw in language was colored only, white only. I saw a lot of bad language that had to be taken apart. What Kwame is doing - which I think is wonderful - his generation is having to try to help people take that next step, that you use language to make it just a little bit better.

MARTIN: We asked you to bring a poem that signifies the connection between poetry and protest today. What did you bring us, Nikki?

GIOVANNI: I brought "Black Lives Matter."

(Reading) I'm not ashamed of our history because I know there is more to come.

I'm not ashamed of slavery, neither bought nor sold, because I know there is another answer.

I'm not ashamed of dark or light skin, straight or curly or nappy - let's call it that - hair.

I'm not ashamed of thick or thin lips, nor of the time we waste singing and dancing.

We taught the white folks to sing and dance, too.

I'm proud of Simon the Cyrene. Nobody made him help Jesus. He did his part.

I'm proud of the woman who moaned on the ship at the 10th day for admitting if not defeat then certainly change.

I'm proud of the rappers who rap. And most especially, I'm proud that Black Lives Matter.

We do.

We honestly do.

MARTIN: That poem, written by Nikki Giovanni, called "Black Lives Matter."

Kwame, you also brought this amazing poem by Pablo Neruda that speaks to this conversation. Can you read this?

ALEXANDER: Sure. And Neruda, as we all know, began his career writing love poems...

MARTIN: Yeah.

ALEXANDER: ...And as he matured, witnessed the Spanish Civil War, his poems became more political.

(Reading) You are going to ask - and where are the lilacs? And the poppy-petalled metaphysics? And the rain repeatedly spattering its words and drilling them full of apertures⁷ and birds?

I'll tell you all the news.

Look at broken Spain.

From every house burning metal flows instead of flowers, from every socket⁸ of Spain, Spain emerges and from every dead child a rifle with eyes, and from every crime bullets are born which will one day find the bull's-eye of your hearts.

And you'll ask - why doesn't his poetry speak of dreams and leaves and the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets. Come and see, the blood in the streets. Come and see the blood, in the streets.

And that's an excerpt⁹ from Pablo Neruda's poem "I Explain A Few Things."

MARTIN: Wow.

GIOVANNI: Oh, my.

MARTIN: Right.

GIOVANNI: That was lovely (laughter). That was lovely. (Reciting) Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is stretched out against the sky like a patient etherized upon the table. Oh, do not say you're not able (ph).

MARTIN: What's that from, Nikki?

GIOVANNI: T.S. Eliot.

ALEXANDER: You've got two poets in the room, Rachel. We're just - we just go...

MARTIN: But I love - she just, like, sprinkles it around. This is like a...

ALEXANDER: This is how we talk.

MARTIN: ...Battle of the poets here.

GIOVANNI: Oh, no - he'll beat me because I'm way dumber than he is on that (laughter).

MARTIN: Nikki, where do you see poetry making change in this moment?

GIOVANNI: I don't see anything other than poetry making change. Poetry is something that we all turn to. If you think about going into space - and I'm a big space fan - what are you going to take? You're going to have to take poems because - and excuse me, Kwame - you can take one or two novels. But you know...

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: Yours, of course.

GIOVANNI: Of course. But you can't take but so many novels. But you can take a book of poetry because every day that you read it, it's going to be different. And it's going to bring another light to you.

ALEXANDER: Rachel, I think we should take some of these young poets who are writing about protest, people like Aja Monet, who wrote an amazing poem about Black Lives Matter. It's a poem called "Word Warriors¹⁰." This is her reading an excerpt of the poem.

(SOUNDBITE OF POEM, "WORD WARRIORS")

AJA MONET: Show me a man willing to fight beside me, my hand in his, the color of courage. There is no mountaintop worth seeing without us. Meet me in the trenches¹¹, where we lay our bodies down in the valley of a voice. Say her name.

GIOVANNI: Oh.

MARTIN: That's powerful.

GIOVANNI: Absolutely.

MARTIN: Nikki Giovanni is an author and a professor at Virginia Tech. Her most recent collection is "A Good Cry."

Thank you so much.

GIOVANNI: Thank you.

ALEXANDER: Thank you, Nikki. We love you.

GIOVANNI: Oh, we love you. I'll talk to you later on.

MARTIN: (Laughter).

ALEXANDER: All right.

GIOVANNI: OK. Thanks, sweetheart.

MARTIN: So the next time we talk to you, Kwame, it's going to be Valentine's Day. And what we want you all to do, dear listeners, we want you to share a specific moment in your life regarding love and relationships. And then we're going to find a poem for it. This is the whole range of experiences. Right?

ALEXANDER: Yeah, we want specific moments. We want that loved one who's no longer here and what you were feeling that day.

MARTIN: Right.

ALEXANDER: We want, you know, that first look in someone's eyes when you saw them and you knew this is the person.

MARTIN: Yeah. And then we're going to give you a poem about that.

So go to npr.org/morningpoem to share your love anecdotes¹² - again, npr.org/morning poem. And we look forward to hearing your submissions¹³.

(SOUNDBITE OF TAKENOBU'S "MOMOTARO")

INSKEEP: Rachel Martin speaking with authors Kwame Alexander and Nikki Giovanni.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 conjure   

v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法

参考例句：

• I conjure you not to betray me.我恳求你不要背弃我。
• I can't simply conjure up the money out of thin air.我是不能像变魔术似的把钱变来。

3 boycotts   

（对某事物的）抵制( boycott的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Their methods included boycotts and court action, supplemented by'sit-ins". 他们的主要方法包括联合抵制、法庭起诉，还附带进行静坐抗议。
• Are boycotts for other purposes illegal? 至于用于其它目的的联合抵制行动是否也是非法的呢？

4 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

5 brutality   

n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• a general who was infamous for his brutality 因残忍而恶名昭彰的将军

6 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

7 apertures   

n.孔( aperture的名词复数 )；隙缝；（照相机的）光圈；孔径

参考例句：

• These apertures restrict the amount of light that can reach the detector. 这些光阑将会限制到达探测器的光线的总量。 来自互联网
• The virtual anode formation time and propagation velocity at different pressure with different apertures are investigated. 比较了在不同气压和空心阴极孔径下虚阳极的形成时间和扩展速度。 来自互联网

8 socket   

n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口

参考例句：

• He put the electric plug into the socket.他把电插头插入插座。
• The battery charger plugs into any mains socket.这个电池充电器可以插入任何类型的电源插座。

9 excerpt   

n.摘录，选录，节录

参考例句：

• This is an excerpt from a novel.这是一部小说的摘录。
• Can you excerpt something from the newspaper? 你能从报纸上选录些东西吗？

10 warriors   

武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I like reading the stories ofancient warriors. 我喜欢读有关古代武士的故事。
• The warriors speared the man to death. 武士们把那个男子戳死了。

11 trenches   

深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕

参考例句：

• life in the trenches 第一次世界大战期间的战壕生活
• The troops stormed the enemy's trenches and fanned out across the fields. 部队猛攻敌人的战壕，并在田野上呈扇形散开。

12 anecdotes   

n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• amusing anecdotes about his brief career as an actor 关于他短暂演员生涯的趣闻逸事
• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman. 他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 submissions   

n.提交( submission的名词复数 )；屈从；归顺；向法官或陪审团提出的意见或论据

参考例句：

• The deadline for submissions to the competition will be Easter 1994. 递交参赛申请的截止时间为1994年的复活节。 来自辞典例句
• Section 556(d) allows the agency to substitute written submissions for oral direct testimony in rulemaking. 第五百五十六条第（四）款准允行政机关在规则制定中用书面提交材料替代口头的直接证言。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法