PBS高端访谈:2018年度词汇"有毒"引发的思考（在线收听）

JUDY WOODRUFF: Oxford Dictionaries has named toxic as the word of the year. There was a 45 percent jump in the number of times people looked it up online. And it was chosen to "reflect the ethos, the mood, or preoccupations of the passing year". Despite that backdrop, poet Ada Limon believes there is a more effective way to communicate, and she shares her Humble Opinion on the radical hope in poetry.

朱迪·伍德拉夫：《牛津字典》命名“有毒的”为年度词汇。这个词的在线搜索次数上升了45%。所以，《牛津字典》选择这个词来“反映社会思潮以及过去这一年人们关注的焦点。”虽然有这样的大背景，但诗人艾达·利蒙认为，还有一个更有效的沟通方式。她在诗歌中分享了自己关于极端希望的《我之拙见》。

ADA LIMON, Poet: These days, it seems like all we do is read and write, or should I say scroll and post. And while some people have rigorously stuck to the model of sharing only perfectly framed photos of peach Bellinis or pictures of homemade pozole, for the most part, it seems that the one thing we consistently share is our outrage. Now, I'm not saying rage can't be useful, healthy, even necessary, but it is not lost on me that, at the same time we're inundated with diatribes and rants on our news feeds, on our televisions, people have been turning, more and more, to poetry. At a time when language is often used only as a blunt tool, poetry reminds us that language can also be used for nuance, mystery, and even radical hope. Poetry is a place where both grief and grace can live, where rage can be explored and examined, not simply exploited, like the lines from one of Terrance Hayes' poems called American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin. Something happens everywhere in this country every day. Someone is praying. Someone is prey. Or how Jose Olivarez explores the danger of his own anger in the lines of his poem, Poem in Which I Become Wolverine. I know my rage is poison. I know it kills me first. And, still, I love it and feed it. Poetry isn't a place of answers and easy solutions. It's a place where we can admit to an unknowing, own our private despair, and still, sometimes, practice beauty. In my own work, I'm always trying to lean toward the real questions, as in my poem Dead Stars. Look, we are not unspectacular things. We have come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more? I believe people are reading more poetry because we distrust the diatribe, the easy answer, the argument that holds only one note. Poetry makes its music from specificity and empathy. It speaks to the whole complex notion of what it means to be human. And that is exactly what we need more of these days: a chance to be seen fully in both our rage and our humanity.

艾达·利蒙，诗人：近来，我们所做的似乎只有阅读和写作，或者要我来说，就是写和发。有些人疯狂沉迷于分享经过美化的桃子贝里尼和自制玉米肉汤的图片。但大多数时候，我们一直坚持不懈分享的，似乎是我们的愤怒。我并不是说愤怒毫无用处、很不健康或者没有必要，我只是想说自己看到的一点：与此同时，新闻和电视上到处都是诽谤和痛斥的内容，人们越来越多的诉诸于诗歌。在语言只被用来作为工具的今天，诗歌可以提醒我们语言也可以用来感受精妙、奥秘甚至是极端的希望。在诗歌里，悲伤与优雅可以共存，愤怒可以成为仔细审视的主题，而不只是被消费的对象。正如特朗斯·海耶斯《我的过去和未来刺客的美国十四行诗》中一段话所写的那样。我们的国家，每天总会发生一些事情。有人在祈祷，有人成为被狩猎的对象。也正如何塞·奥利瓦雷兹在诗歌中探索自己愤怒可能引发的危险，那首诗歌的名字是《我变成了金刚》。我知道我的愤怒是毒药。我知道这愤怒会先将我湮灭。但我还是喜欢这愤怒，并助长其燃烧。诗歌不是拍拍脑袋就能提供解决方案的地方，而是我们可以承认自己没有察觉的情绪、专属于自己的绝望，并传播美的地方。在我自己的作品中，我总是会尽力贴近于真正的问题，比如我的诗歌《陨落的星》。看，我们也是可以引人注意的，我们已经历练了这么久，走到了今天。如果我想活得更久，会发生什么呢？我认为人们会阅读更多的诗歌，因为我们不相信诽谤，不相信拍拍脑袋就能给出的答案，不相信只有一枪孤愤的论断。诗歌是通过其特殊性和同理心来产生共鸣的。诗歌所讲述的复杂概念就是做人是怎样的体验。而我们现在更需要的是一个机会，一个充分认识到愤怒和人性的机会。

JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you, Ada Limon.

朱迪·伍德拉夫：感谢您的分享，艾达·利蒙。