Poetry gets a bad rap.
诗歌名声不好。
No, not poetry is bad rap. Let me explain what I mean. Poetry is older than the novel, can be shorter than a song, and asks only to be read to be experienced. Other forms of entertainment are much more demanding. Reading something longer than a poem requires time and a quiet environment. Properly listening to music takes time too, especially if enjoyed live. TV or film needs the setup of expensive electrical equipment.
不，不是诗歌是坏名声。 让我解释一下我的意思。 诗歌比小说更古老，可以比歌曲更短，只要求阅读才能体验。 其他形式的娱乐要求更高。 閱讀比一首詩更长的东西需要时间和安静的环境。 正确听音乐也需要时间，尤其是享受现场音乐。 电视或电影需要安装昂贵的电气设备。
But a poem, theoretically, can be read in a minute or so and offers a pause from the rapid pace of everyday life. It suggests a glimpse into someone else’s human experience, presented in a convenient and (ideally) aesthetically pleasing bundle of words. And it is often the case that poems deal with intense or difficult emotions, presenting them to us in a way that tells us we are not alone, that someone has gone through this before, that things are OK. Poems could be the most popular form of entertainment.
但从理论上讲，一首诗可以在一分钟左右读完，并从快节奏的日常生活中暂停。 它暗示了对他人的人类经历的一瞥，以方便且（理想）美观的单词束呈现。 诗歌通常涉及强烈或困难的情绪，以一种方式呈现给我们，告诉我们我们并不孤单，以前有人经历过这种情况，一切都很好。诗歌可能是最受欢迎的娱乐形式。
So why is this just not the case?
那么，为什么情况并非如此呢？
Well, consider this extract from an unpublished poet:
好吧，考虑一下这位未发表的诗人的摘录：
“It’s easy to be clear: Climate change kills.
It’s easy to be difficult: “Red endless Duncan
salts Dante, oui, to the sea in ships: Zeitgeist, oh Babylon.”
It’s hard to be clear: So much depends upon “depends upon.”
“很容易说清楚：气候变化会致命。很难说：“红色无尽的Duncansalts Dante，oui，乘船到海里：时代精神，哦，巴比伦。” 很難說清楚：很大程度上取決於「依賴」。
Uhh… Huh? The poem continues in a similar vein before ending with:
呃……嗯？ 这首诗继续以类似的方式结束，最后是：
“It’s good to live and write in the groove
you moved in and to mute notions of clear
and difficult and do neither for its own sake
but instead stay awake to your own moods.”
“在你进入的沟壑中生活和写作是件好事，并抑制清晰和困难的概念，既不是为了它本身，而是对自己的心情保持清醒。”
OK. To sum up the issue here, ironically this poor poet has been really quite unclear. In demonstrating being difficult, I feel confused by the references used, and while they are likely used specifically to be opaque, this can have the effect of locking readers out. The final message of the poem in the last line gets lost among the muddy sentencing of the previous three. There is no connection to or engagement with any character, voice or story, so this poem’s meaning is lost. Anyone and everyone can write poetry and publish what they’ve written with the minimum of effort and cost, which sounds like a democratic dream, with the means of production firmly in the hands of the producer-consumer. However, it brings with it a lack of quality assurance.
好的。 总结一下这个问题，具有讽刺意味的是，这位可怜的诗人真的很不清楚。 在演示困難時，我對使用的引用感到困惑，雖然它們可能專門用於不透明，但這可能會產生將讀者拒之門外的效果。 最后一行的诗的最后一个信息在前三行的混乱判决中丢失了。 与任何角色、声音或故事都没有联系或参与，所以这首诗的意义都消失了。 任何人都可以用最少的努力和成本写诗和出版他们写的东西，这听起来像一个民主的梦想，生产资料牢牢掌握在生产者-消费者手中。 然而，它带来了缺乏质量保证。
Further consideration, then, of a name that should be synonymous with quality: Shakespeare, and his “Sonnet 102”:
因此，进一步考虑一个应该与质量同义的名字：莎士比亚和他的“十四行诗102”：
“My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the show appear.
That love is merchandised whose rich esteeming
The owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere.”
“我的爱得到了加强，尽管看起来更弱；我的爱没有减少，尽管表演的出现更少。这种爱被商品化了，其丰富的尊重，主人的舌头到处发布。”
The issue here? Difficulty, at least at first glance and contact. Perhaps due in part to the off-putting “doth” in the fourth line, although the rest of the words in are not all that unusual or uncommon; yes, even “merchandised”. Difficulty arises from the layering and doubling of words. “Less” used twice in quick succession muddles our processing of what is being described. Shakespeare’s love is not less because he shows it less, and his description of other tired-out love poems as “sweets grown common” touches on another issue that can come out of poetry; an overabundance of it. (I do, in fact, advocate reading the rest of this poem. Arguing over Shakespeare’s quality makes more sense the more of him you’ve read.)
这里的问题？ 困难，至少乍一看和接触。 也许部分原因是第四行中令人不平气的“doth”，尽管其余的单词并不那么不寻常；是的，甚至是“商品化”。 单词的分层和加倍会产生困难。 连续使用两次“更少”会混淆我们对所描述内容的处理。 莎士比亚的爱并不是因为他表现出更少，他将其他疲惫的爱情诗描述为“甜食变得普遍”，这触及了诗歌中可能出现的另一个问题；它过多。 （事實上，我確實主張閱讀這首詩的其餘部分。 你越是讀越有意義地爭論莎士比亞的品質。）
Poetry, then, gets its bad reputation from appearing to be too challenging, not always clear, and too exclusive. It probably doesn’t help that many readers will usually only encounter it at one of these three places; school, wedding, funeral. In an educational setting, if the teacher is not enthusiastic about teaching poetry, it’s possible to do more harm than good. At weddings, finally, poetry starts to find its place. Poetry strives to represent hopeful, noble ideals like love and future. However, there is still a strong chance the poem will be one of the clichéd classics (Rumi, Neruda) or, infinitely more terrifying, a poem penned by the groom or best man just for that day with no previous experience. This could again put people off. It is perhaps at a funeral where poetry feels most appropriate. The gravity of the occasion matches a sombre, tender poem, and universal grief is well served by the slowed down ritual of the spoken word.
因此，诗歌因其过于具有挑战性、并不总是清晰和过于排他性而名声大噪。 许多读者通常只会在这三个地方之一遇到它，这可能没有帮助；学校、婚礼、葬礼。 在教育环境中，如果老师对教授诗歌不热情，那么可能弊大于利。 在婚礼上，诗歌终于开始找到它的位置。 诗歌努力代表充满希望、崇高的理想，如爱情和未来。 然而，这首诗仍然很有可能成为陈词滥调的经典之一（鲁米，聶鲁达），或者更可怕的是新郎或伴郎为那天写的一首诗，以前没有经验。 这可能会再次让人们退出。 也许在葬礼上，诗歌感觉最合适。 这个场合的严肃性与一首阴郁、温柔的诗相匹配，口语的慢节奏仪式很好地为普遍的悲伤服务。
So how, then, to rehabilitate poetry into everyday life?
那么，如何将诗歌恢复到日常生活中呢？
Poetry doesn’t have to be only serious, grief-serving, clichéd, or complex. It can be simple without being stupid, and direct while still packaging language up pleasingly. It can even be fun.
诗歌不必只是严肃的、悲伤的、陈词滥调的或复杂的。 它可以简单而不愚蠢，直接，同时仍然愉快地包装语言。 它甚至可以很有趣。
A poet I recommend to all readers, old and young, is Billy Collins. Poet Laureate of the USA from 2001-2003, he understands the problems plaguing many poets, who can appear too distant and aloof, too concerned with appearing clever. He has said, “I have one reader in mind, someone who is in the room with me, and who I’m talking to, and I want to make sure I don’t talk too fast, or too glibly”. This sentiment captures the best of what poetry could be, for me, a way to connect with another human being.
我推荐给所有老少读者的诗人是比利·柯林斯。 2001-2003年，作为美国桂冠诗人，他了解困扰许多诗人的问题，他们可能显得过于疏远和冷漠，过于关注显得聪明。 他说：“我脑子里有一个读者，一个和我一起在房间里的人，我正在和他说话，我想确保我不会说得太快，或者说话太呱步。” 對我來說，這種情感捕捉到了詩歌最好的一面，是與另一個人聯絡的一種方式。
It is a message that chimes with one strand of the tradition of poetry here in China. As Billy Collins notes, titles of well-known Chinese poems can be extremely literal and direct, telling us immediately what to expect: “题西林壁” (Written on the Wall of the West Woods Temple) being just one example. In his typically soft, humorous, and self-referential way, Collins named one of his works, “Reading an Anthology of Chinese Poems of the Sung Dynasty, I pause to Admire the Length and Clarity of their Titles”.
这是一个与中国诗歌传统的一股相融合的信息。 正如比利·柯林斯所指出的，著名的中国诗歌的标题可以非常直截了当，立即告诉我们会发生什么：“题西林壁”（写在西林寺的墙上）只是一个例子。 柯林斯以他典型的柔和、幽默和自我参考的方式，将他的一部作品命名为“阅读宋代中国诗歌选集，我停下来欣赏其标题的长度和清晰度”。
The poem itself is an exploration of how pleasing direct simplicity can be. Collins discusses poems with titles like “On a Boat, Awake at Night”, comparing them favourably with the idea of complexity for complexity’s sake:
这首诗本身是对直接的简单是多么令人愉悦的探索。 柯林斯讨论了标题为“在船上，夜里醒”的诗歌，将它们与为了复杂性而复杂的想法进行了有利的比较：
“There is no iron turnstile to push against here
As with headings like ‘Vortex on a String’,
‘The Horn of Neurosis’, or whatever.
No confusingly inscribed welcome mat to puzzle over.”
「像’弦上的漩渦’、’神經症之角’或其他標題一樣，這裡沒有鐵製旋轉門可以推。沒有令人困惑的銘文的歡迎墊。」
Collins goes on to elevate his own poem above the literal, but by now we are well and truly with him. His use of figurative language from this point in feels earned and mindful of the reader’s needs. Collins has held our hand and guided us, respectfully, along the track of his thoughts and we are more than ready to see what he wants us to see. By describing another poem’s title as, “… a beaded curtain brushing over my shoulders”, Collins shares with us the comfort he feels from reading this well-crafted, simple, direct poetry. He finishes his poem by personifying another of the poems he’s allowed into his world:
柯林斯继续将自己的诗歌提升到字面意思之上，但现在我们真的和他在一起了。 从这一点开始，他使用具象语言，感觉是值得的，并考虑到了读者的需求。 柯林斯握着我们的手，恭敬地引导我们沿着他的思想轨迹走，我们已经准备好看到他希望我们看到的东西。 通过将另一首诗的标题描述为“……披在我肩膀上的串珠窗帘”，柯林斯与我们分享了他在阅读这首精心制作、简单、直接的诗歌时感到的安慰。 他通过将另一首他被允许进入他的世界的诗歌人格化来结束他的诗：
“How easy he has made it for me to enter here,
to sit down in a corner,
cross my legs like his, and listen.”
“他让我很容易进入这里，坐在角落里，像他一样交叉双腿，并倾听。”
If only all poems could treat us this way.
如果所有的诗都能这样对待我们就好了。
