密歇根新闻广播 诗人对变老的理解

Jack¹ Ridl taught for several decades at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He was a tremendously successful professor of literature and creative writing. He won state and national awards for his teaching. He left a legacy² that most people would have been proud of and would be satisfied with.

But all during those years of teaching, Ridl kept working on his poetry, finding a way through the craft that suited his personality. His poems told small stories about ordinary life, suggesting larger issues that reached past the personal toward big subjects. His poems were very clean, uncluttered by any excess verbal baggage, and spoke⁴ directly to their readers.

Unlike many other writers/teachers, when Ridl retired⁵ from his day job, he became even more prolific⁶. He kept many of the techniques he had mastered earlier, but his subject matter became noticeably different. Ridl has become one of the few poets we have who writes interesting poems about aging. It might not be a fashionable subject but it is a necessary one. In St. Peter and the Goldfinch Ridl has a wonderful sequence of poems called Suite³ for the Long Married. In one of the poems there he describes a simple morning in the life of the older couple he writes about:

There is this quiet,

this way the day has of being where

we belong. At precisely⁷ 7:45 the bells

of Saint Peter's will send an old hymn⁸ into

the quiet and we who are still pilgrims

will then walk our way into another day.

The religious element in that poem shows another aspect of the work in St. Peter and the Goldfinch that gives this book its power and helps to make it unique. Many of the poems included here sound like prayers, quiet, uncertain prayers directed toward a god the poet isn't quite positive about. In an earlier poem in the same sequence about the Long Married, Ridl writes:

We will be religious

without faith or doubt.

The trees will be our amen.

The cedar⁹ waxwings at the feeder

will take our place at Communion,

redeeming¹⁰ seed into flight and song.

Tonight with the moon's generosity¹¹

we will gather the vestments for tomorrow.

And that quiet space where the trees will be our amen, is almost enough for those of us who are still pilgrims and who might find the need for poems like these Jack Ridl has written in the daily lives we struggle through.

Support for arts and culture coverage¹² comes in part from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.

1 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

2 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

3 suite   

n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员

参考例句：

• She has a suite of rooms in the hotel.她在那家旅馆有一套房间。
• That is a nice suite of furniture.那套家具很不错。

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

6 prolific   

adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的

参考例句：

• She is a prolific writer of novels and short stories.她是一位多产的作家，写了很多小说和短篇故事。
• The last few pages of the document are prolific of mistakes.这个文件的最后几页错误很多。

7 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

8 hymn   

n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌

参考例句：

• They sang a hymn of praise to God.他们唱着圣歌，赞美上帝。
• The choir has sung only two verses of the last hymn.合唱团只唱了最后一首赞美诗的两个段落。

9 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。

10 redeeming   

补偿的，弥补的

参考例句：

• I found him thoroughly unpleasant, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. 我觉得他一点也不讨人喜欢，没有任何可取之处。
• The sole redeeming feature of this job is the salary. 这份工作唯其薪水尚可弥补一切之不足。

11 generosity   

n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为

参考例句：

• We should match their generosity with our own.我们应该像他们一样慷慨大方。
• We adore them for their generosity.我们钦佩他们的慷慨。

12 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。