Edward Lear

The British Library

Edward Lear was born ‪#‎onthisday‬ in 1812. His famous nonsense verse ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ was written for a friend’s three-year-old daughter and features ‘runcible spoon’, a phrase he invented. Do you know what that means? http://bitly.com/1H0qZ0K

Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets by Edward Lear

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Edward Lear’s Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets brought together a variety of nonsense writing, from alphabets and recipes, to botany, verses and stories. Lear was already well known for writing nonsense: his collection of illustrated limericks, A Book of Nonsense (1846), had been immediately popular, and Lear added further limericks to it over the years. ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’, shown here, is one of the best-loved of Lear’s verses and was written for three-year-old Janet Symonds, whose parents were friends of Lear.  

A feature of nonsense writing is the use of invented words and one of Lear’s most famous examples is the ‘runcible spoon’ used by the owl and the pussycat at their wedding feast. The word ‘runcible’ proved to be so popular that it has now moved from being a nonsense word to having a dictionary definition: a pickle fork with three prongs, one of which is sharp and curved for cutting.

- See more at: http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/nonsense-songs-stories-botany-and-alphabets-by-edward-lear#sthash.UwnbFN5s.dpuf

"Runcible" is a nonsense word invented by Edward Lear. The word appears (as an adjective) several times in his works, most famously as the "runcible spoon" used by the Owl and the Pussycat.^[1] The word "runcible" was apparently one of Lear's favourite inventions, appearing in several of his works in reference to a number of different objects. In his verse self-portrait, The Self-Portrait of the Laureate of Nonsense, it is noted that "he weareth a runcible hat".^[2] Other poems include mention of a "runcible cat",^[3] a "runcible goose" (in the sense of "silly person"),^[4] and a "runcible wall".^[4]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Origin
• 2 Attempts to define the word
• 3 In popular culture
  • 3.1 Used as an adjective
  • 3.2 Used as a spoon or other device
  • 3.3 Used as a character name
  • 3.4 Used as a place name
  • 3.5 Music
  • 3.6 Computer science
  • 3.7 Publication
• 4 References

Origin[edit]

One of Edward Lear's drawings depicts the dolomphious duck's use of a runcible spoon.

Edward Lear's best-known poem, The Owl and the Pussycat, published in 1871, includes the passage:

They dined on mince and slices of quince,

which they ate with a runcible spoon.^[1]

Another mention of this piece of cutlery appears in the alphabetical illustrations Twenty-Six Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures. Its entry for Dreads

The Dolomphious Duck,

who caught Spotted Frogs for her dinner

with a Runcible Spoon^[5]

Lear often illustrated his own poems, and he drew a picture of the "dolomphious duck" holding in its beak a round-bowled spoon containing a frog.

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes

屠岸譯此詩給兒子當53歲生日賀詩，《生正逢時：屠岸自述》 pp.354-55

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908).  A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895.  1895.

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Francis William Bourdillon (b. 1852)

THE NIGHT has a thousand eyes,   And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies   With the dying sun.   The mind has a thousand eyes,         5   And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies   When love is done.

"靈山"是馮雪峰（1903年6月2日－1976年1月31日，浙江義烏人，中國詩人，文藝評論家。1946年選《真實之歌》中新詩17首，改題為《靈山歌》出版--作家書屋, 1947）詩中的重要意象，參考屠岸《我與人民文學出版社‧回顧在"人文"的歲月 》北京：人民文學出版社，2001，頁270-75：
"一座不屈的山！我們這代人的姿影。一個悲哀和一個聖跡，然而一個號召，和一個標記！"
不知道這些是否跟高行健的《靈山》書名相關？

Lost in translation - a poem by James Merrill

史景遷《王氏之死》（The Death of Woman Wang, （1977）：《婦人王氏之死》李孝愷譯，（台北：麥田，2001））卷首引James Merrill【（1926–1995. American poet whose works include Divine Comedies (1976), which won a Pulitzer  Prize.）http://www.answers.com/James%20Merrill%20】

「失去的，埋塟了嗎？又一個（sic）失落的文件？

但沒有任何東西消逝。或者，一切都是翻譯

我們的每個片段都消逝於其中……」

-----李孝愷之譯文，沒說明引詩出處。

James Merrill這首長詩Lost in Translation"大大有名，所以http://www.answers.com/網頁有解讀。（據說詩集Divine Comedies (1976), 收有"Lost in Translation" 和" The Book of Ephraim"等等。）

我們介紹過『梅利爾（James Merrill）詩選』（河北教育：書中有此詩之譯和注（由於它引用里爾克德文翻譯 Paul Valery的「棕櫚樹」，並將此詩獻給當代翻譯法文的名家 Richard Howard，牽涉法-德-英和許多人物-地方-事情，所以要注解-翻譯……））

『梅利爾（James Merrill）詩選』中此詩末段翻譯為：

But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation

And every bit of us is lost in it...

And in that loss a self-effacing tree,

Color of context, imperceptibly

Rustling with its angel, turns the waste

To shade and fiber, milk and memory.

失去了，它，就被埋葬了嗎，另一個失去的片段？

但什麼也沒有失去，或不如說，一切都是翻譯

我們的每一點都消失在它之中

Lost in translation - a poem by James Merrill

For Richard Howard

Diese Tage, die leer dir scheinen
und wertlos für das All,
haben Wurzeln zwischen den Steinen
und trinken dort überall.

A card table in the library stands ready
To receive the puzzle which keeps never coming.
Daylight shines in or lamplight down
Upon the tense oasis of green felt.
Full of unfulfillment, life goes on,
Mirage arisen from time's trickling sands
Or fallen piecemeal into place:
German lesson, picnic, see-saw, walk
With the collie who "did everything but talk"—
Sour windfalls of the orchard back of us.
A summer without parents is the puzzle,
Or should be. But the boy, day after day,
Writes in his Line-a-Day No puzzle.

He's in love, at least. His French Mademoiselle,
In real life a widow since Verdun,
Is stout, plain, carrot-haired, devout.
She prays for him, as does a curé in Alsace,
Sews costumes for his marionettes,
Helps him to keep behind the scene
Whose sidelit goosegirl, speaking with his voice,
Plays Guinevere as well as Gunmoll Jean.
Or else at bedtime in his tight embrace
Tells him her own French hopes, her German fears,
Her—but what more is there to tell?
Having known grief and hardship, Mademoiselle
Knows little more. Her languages. Her place.
Noon coffee. Mail. The watch that also waited
Pinned to her heart, poor gold, throws up its hands—
No puzzle! Steaming bitterness
Her sugars draw pops back into his mouth, translated:
"Patience, chéri. Geduld, mein Schatz."
(Thus, reading Valéry the other evening
And seeming to recall a Rilke version of "Palme,"
That sunlit paradigm whereby the tree
Taps a sweet wellspring of authority,
The hour came back. Patience dans l'azur.
Geduld im. . . Himmelblau? Mademoiselle.)

Out of the blue, as promised, of a New York
Puzzle-rental shop the puzzle comes—
A superior one, containing a thousand hand-sawn,
Sandal-scented pieces. Many take
Shapes known already—the craftsman's repertoire
Nice in its limitation—from other puzzles:
Witch on broomstick, ostrich, hourglass,
Even (surely not just in retrospect)
An inchling, innocently branching palm.
These can be put aside, made stories of
While Mademoiselle spreads out the rest face-up,
Herself excited as a child; or questioned
Like incoherent faces in a crowd,
Each with its scrap of highly colored
Evidence the Law must piece together.
Sky-blue ostrich? Likely story.
Mauve of the witch's cloak white, severed fingers
Pluck? Detain her. The plot thickens
As all at once two pieces interlock.

Mademoiselle does borders— (Not so fast.
A London dusk, December last.
Chatter silenced in the library
This grown man reenters, wearing grey.
A medium. All except him have seen
Panel slid back, recess explored,
An object at once unique and common
Displayed, planted in a plain tole
Casket the subject now considers
Through shut eyes, saying in effect:
"Even as voices reach me vaguely
A dry saw-shriek drowns them out,
Some loud machinery— a lumber mill?
Far uphill in the fir forest
Trees tower, tense with shock,
Groaning and cracking as they crash groundward.
But hidden here is a freak fragment
Of a pattern complex in appearance only.
What it seems to show is superficial
Next to that long-term lamination
Of hazard and craft, the karma that has
Made it matter in the first place.
Plywood. Piece of a puzzle." Applause
Acknowledged by an opening of lids
Upon the thing itself. A sudden dread—
But to go back. All this lay years ahead.)

Mademoiselle does borders. Straight-edge pieces
Align themselves with earth or sky
In twos and threes, naive cosmogonists
Whose views clash. Nomad inlanders meanwhile
Begin to cluster where the totem
Of a certain vibrant egg-yolk yellow
Or pelt of what emerging animal
Acts on the straggler like a trumpet call
To form a more soph"isticated unit.
By suppertime two ragged wooden clouds
Have formed. In one, a Sheik with beard
And flashing sword hilt (he is all but finished)
Steps forward on a tiger skin. A piece
Snaps shut, and fangs gnash out at us!
In the second cloud—they gaze from cloud to cloud
With marked if undecipherable feeling—
Most of a dark-eyed woman veiled in mauve
Is being helped down from her camel (kneeling)
By a small backward-looking slave or page-boy
(Her son, thinks Mademoiselle mistakenly)
Whose feet have not been found. But lucky finds
In the last minutes before bed
Anchor both factions to the scene's limits
And, by so doing, orient
Them eye to eye across the green abyss.
The yellow promises, oh bliss,
To be in time a sumptuous tent.

Puzzle begun I write in the day's space,
Then, while she bathes, peek at Mademoiselle's
Page to the curé: ". . . cette innocente mère,
Ce pauvre enfant, que deviendront-ils?"
Her azure script is curlicued like pieces
Of the puzzle she will be telling him about.
(Fearful incuriosity of childhood!
"Tu as l'accent allemande" said Dominique.
Indeed. Mademoiselle was only French by marriage.
Child of an English mother, a remote
Descendant of the great explorer Speke,
And Prussian father. No one knew. I heard it
Long afterwards from her nephew, a UN
Interpreter. His matter-of-fact account
Touched old strings. My poor Mademoiselle,
With 1939 about to shake
This world where "each was the enemy, each the friend"
To its foundations, kept, though signed in blood,
Her peace a shameful secret to the end.)
"Schlaf wohl, chéri." Her kiss. Her thumb
Crossing my brow against the dreams to come.

This World that shifts like sand, its unforeseen
Consolidations and elate routine,
Whose Potentate had lacked a retinue?
Lo! it assembles on the shrinking Green.

Gunmetal-skinned or pale, all plumes and scars,
Of Vassalage the noblest avatars—
The very coffee-bearer in his vair
Vest is a swart Highness, next to ours.

Kef easing Boredom, and iced syrups, thirst,
In guessed-at glooms old wives who know the worst
Outsweat that virile fiction of the New:
"Insh'Allah, he will tire—" "—or kill her first!"

(Hardly a proper subject for the Home,
Work of—dear Richard, I shall let you comb
Archives and learned journals for his name—
A minor lion attending on Gérôme.)

While, thick as Thebes whose presently complete
Gates close behind them, Houri and Afreet
Both claim the Page. He wonders whom to serve,
And what his duties are, and where his feet,

And if we'll find, as some before us did,
That piece of Distance deep in which lies hid
Your tiny apex sugary with sun,
Eternal Triangle, Great Pyramid!

Then Sky alone is left, a hundred blue
Fragments in revolution, with no clue
To where a Niche will open. Quite a task,
Putting together Heaven, yet we do.

It's done. Here under the table all along
Were those missing feet. It's done.

The dog's tail thumping. Mademoiselle sketching
Costumes for a coming harem drama
To star the goosegirl. All too soon the swift
Dismantling. Lifted by two corners,
The puzzle hung together—and did not.
Irresistibly a populace
Unstitched of its attachments, rattled down.
Power went to pieces as the witch
Slithered easily from Virtue's gown.
The blue held out for time, but crumbled, too.
The city had long fallen, and the tent,
A separating sauce mousseline,
Been swept away. Remained the green
On which the grown-ups gambled. A green dusk.
First lightning bugs. Last glow of west
Green in the false eyes of (coincidence)
Our mangy tiger safe on his bared hearth.

Before the puzzle was boxed and readdressed
To the puzzle shop in the mid-Sixties,
Something tells me that one piece contrived
To stay in the boy's pocket. How do I know?
I know because so many later puzzles
Had missing pieces—Maggie Teyte's high notes
Gone at the war's end, end of the vogue for collies,
A house torn down; and hadn't Mademoiselle
Kept back her pitiful bit of truth as well?
I've spent the last days, furthermore,
Ransacking Athens for that translation of "Palme."
Neither the Goethehaus nor the National Library
Seems able to unearth it. Yet I can't
Just be imagining. I've seen it. Know
How much of the sun-ripe original
Felicity Rilke made himself forego
(Who loved French words—verger, mûr, parfumer)
In order to render its underlying sense.
Know already in that tongue of his
What Pains, what monolithic Truths
Shadow stanza to stanza's symmetrical
Rhyme-rutted pavement. Know that ground plan left
Sublime and barren, where the warm Romance
Stone by stone faded, cooled; the fluted nouns
Made taller, lonelier than life
By leaf-carved capitals in the afterglow.
The owlet umlaut peeps and hoots
Above the open vowel. And after rain
A deep reverberation fills with stars.

Lost, is it, buried? One more missing piece?

But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it
(Or found—I wander through the ruin of S
Now and then, wondering at the peacefulness)
And in that loss a self-effacing tree,
Color of context, imperceptibly
Rustling with its angel, turns the waste
To shade and fiber, milk and memory.

****

莫名其妙的Google 翻譯

 迷失東京 - 一首詩由詹姆斯·美林
對於理查德·霍華德

Diese踏歌，死閱讀目錄scheinen
UND wertlos獻給DAS所有，
haben Wurzeln zwischen書房Steine​​n
UND trinken多特überall。

A卡表在圖書館隨時準備
要獲得這絕不不斷傳來的謎題。
日光照射或燈光下
在綠色的緊張綠洲感覺。
全unfulfillment的，生活還要繼續，
幻影不時的滴濾砂出現
或下降零碎到位：
德國的教訓，野餐，拉鋸，走
與誰“做了一切，但談話”的牧羊犬 - 
美國的果園回來酸味橫財。
沒有父母一個夏天的困擾，
還是應該的。但是男孩，一天又一天，
寫在他的線，一個日無之謎。

他在戀愛，至少。他的法國小姐，
在現實生活中，因為凡爾登一個寡婦，
是粗壯，平原，胡蘿蔔頭髮，虔誠。
她祈求他，做了治愈阿爾薩斯，
縫製服裝為他牽線木偶，
幫助他保持幕後
其側光goosegirl，與他的語音對講，
播放吉尼維爾以及Gunmoll吉恩。
或者在睡前在他緊緊擁抱
告訴他自己的法國的希望，她的德國的擔憂，
她，但還有什麼有告訴？
具有已知的悲痛和困苦，小姐
知道多一點。她的語言。她的地方。
中午的咖啡。郵件。也等待著手錶
別在她的心臟，黃金較差，拋出了其動手
無謎題！熱氣騰騰的辛酸
她的糖畫啪啪放回嘴裡，翻譯：
“耐心，謝裡。Geduld，炒麵沙茨。”
（因此，閱讀瓦萊裡其他的晚上
並似乎在回憶起里爾克版“金棕櫚獎”
這陽光明媚的範式，從而樹
水龍頭權威的甜蜜源泉，
小時回來。耐心丹斯歐萊雅海岸。
Geduld IM。 。 。希梅爾布勞？小姐。）

出於藍，因為答應了紐約，
益智租賃店的拼圖comes-
一個卓越的，包含一千手工鋸，
涼鞋香味件。許多需要
形狀知已，工匠的曲目
尼斯在其局限性，從其他難題：
巫婆掃帚上，鴕鳥，沙漏，
即使（當然不只是回想起來）
一個inchling，傻傻分支棕櫚。
這些都可以拋開，由故事
雖然小姐鋪上休息面朝上，
她興奮，因為一個孩子;或質疑
像語無倫次的面孔在人群中，
每個高度有色廢鋼
證據法必須拼湊。
天藍色鴕鳥？可能的故事。
魔女的斗篷白色，斷指的紫紅色
採摘？扣留她。情節變稠
作為一次全部兩塊互鎖。

小姐不borders-（沒有這麼快。
倫敦的黃昏，去年十二月。
喋喋不休沉默庫
這個成年男子重新進入，身穿灰色。
中等。所有除了他所看到的
面板滑回，凹陷探索，
一次獨特的，共同的目標
顯示，栽在一個普通的托爾
骨灰盒的主題現在認為
通過閉著眼睛，實際上說：
“儘管聲音依稀找到我
幹鋸尖叫聲淹沒出來，
有的大聲machinery-一個木材廠？
在冷杉林遠上坡
樹塔，與緊張的衝擊，
呻吟和開裂，因為他們崩潰groundward。
但這裡隱藏著一個怪胎片段
在外觀上只有一個圖案複雜。
它似乎表明是膚淺的
下一步，長期層壓
危害和工藝，具有因果報應
使它在​​首位關係。
膠合板。的一塊拼圖。“掌聲
由蓋的開口承認
根據事物本身。突然dread-
但回去。所有這一切都奠定未來幾年。）

小姐確實邊界。直邊件
自己與地球或天空對齊
三三兩兩，天真cosmogonists
他們的觀點交鋒。游牧inlanders同時
開始聚集在那裡的圖騰
一定充滿活力的蛋黃黃
什麼新興的動物或皮毛
作用於像一個小號呼叫落後者
形成了較為SOPH“isticated單位。
通過吃晚飯2破爛的木雲
已經形成。於一體，謝赫與鬍鬚
和閃爍的長劍劍柄（他所有，但成品）
走上前對虎皮。一塊
鎖閉和尖牙咬牙切齒了我們！
在第二個雲，他們從雲凝視到雲
隨著標，如果無法破解feeling-
最黑暗的眼睛的女人隱藏在紫紅色
從她的駱駝正在幫助下（跪）
由一個小向後看奴隸或頁面男孩
（她的兒子，認為小姐誤）
誰的腳也沒有發現。但幸運發現
在睡覺前的最後幾分鐘
固定兩個派別場景的限制
而且，這樣做，東方
他們眼對眼滿眼的綠色深淵。
黃色的承諾，哦幸福，
要及時豐盛的帳篷裡。

益智開始我寫了一天的空間，
然後，當她洗澡，偷看小姐的
頁面的治愈：。“cette innocente單純，
CE pauvre朗方，闕deviendront-ILS？“
她湛藍的腳本curlicued樣件
之謎，她會告訴他。
（由於擔心incuriosity童年！
“屠作為歐萊雅的口音阿勒曼德”多米尼克說。
的確。小姐只有法語婚姻。
英國母親的孩子，遠程
偉大的探險家斯皮克的後裔，
和普魯士的父親。沒有人知道。我聽到了
不久，從她的侄子，聯合國
翻譯。就事論事的事實，他的帳戶
感動的老字符串。我可憐的小姐，
隨著1939年即將撼動
這個世界裡，“每個是敵人，每一個朋友”
它的基礎，保持，但在血液中簽，
她和平可恥的秘密到底。）
“Schlaf沃爾，謝裡。”她的吻。她的拇指
穿越我對夢想的額頭來。

這個世界上，像移砂，其無法預見
合併和歡欣鼓舞常規，
其當權者所缺乏隨從？
羅！它組裝的收縮綠。

青銅色皮膚或蒼白，羽毛都和疤痕，
的家臣最高貴avatars-
非常咖啡承載在他VAIR
背心是斯沃特殿下，旁邊我們的。

KEF緩解無聊，和冰糖漿，口渴，
在猜測，在幽暗的老妻子，誰知道最壞
Outsweat新那陽剛的小說：
“Insh'Allah，他將輪胎 - ”“ - 或者先殺死她！”

（幾乎適用於家庭的一個適當的主題，
的，親愛的理查工作中，我將讓你梳
檔案和學術刊物，他的名字 - 
A小調獅子出席杰羅姆。）

同時，厚的底比斯目前完成
蓋茨接近他們身後，霍利和Afreet
都宣稱頁面。他想知道誰發球，
和他有什麼職責，並在他的腳下，

如果我們會發現，一些在我們面​​前的那樣，
那件深的距離，其中的謊言隱藏
你的小尖含糖有太陽，
永恆三角，大金字塔！

然後，天空獨自留下，百蘭
片段的革命，沒有線索
到一個利基將打開。相當多的任務，
組建了天堂，但我們做的。

它的完成。在這裡，桌下一直
是那些失踪的腳。它的完成。

狗尾巴重擊。素描小姐
服裝的未來后宮劇
明星的goosegirl。時間飛逝，轉眼迅速
拆解。通過兩個角抬起，
拼圖掛在一起，並沒有。
無法抗拒的一個平民
拆散及其附件，叮叮噹當下來。
動力六神無主的女巫
從道德的禮服輕鬆滑行。
藍色堅守了時間，但崩潰了。
城市早已淪落，帳篷，
一個分離醬薄綢，
被一掃而空。依然是綠色的
上大人賭博。綠色黃昏。
首先螢火蟲。最後的光芒西部
綠色的眼睛假（巧合）
我們的癩皮狗虎牌保險櫃在他裸露壁爐。

前謎題是盒裝和重新尋址
在六十年代中期的拼圖店，
東西告訴我，一件做作
留在男孩的口袋裡。我怎麼知道？
我知道，因為這麼多之後困惑
有缺件，張曼玉Teyte的高音
走在戰爭結束時，時尚的牧羊犬結束，
房子拆了;並沒有小姐
保持背部真理她可憐的一點呢？
我花了最後的日子，而且，
洗劫雅典的翻譯“金棕櫚獎”。
無論是Goethehaus，也不是國家圖書館
似乎能夠挖掘它。然而，我不能
只是想像。我已經看到了。知道
多少陽光成熟的原
富臨里爾克使自己放棄
（誰愛法語單詞，司事，穆爾，parfumer）
為了呈現其基本意義。
在那舌頭已經知道了他的
有什麼煩惱，什麼單片真相
影節，以節是對稱的
韻動情路面。知道離開的平面圖
崇高而貧瘠，那裡的溫暖浪漫
石經石褪色，冷卻;該凹槽名詞
做高，高於生活孤單
由葉雕資金的餘輝。
在梟變音偷窺，嘲罵
上述開放式元音。雨過
深混響充滿明星。

失去了，是吧，埋？一人失踪一塊？

但什麼也沒有丟失。否則：都是翻譯
而我們的每一位迷失在它
（或者發現-I通過S的廢墟漫步
現在，然後，想在歌舞昇平）
而在這損失謙虛樹，
色彩情境，潛移默化地
憑藉其天使沙沙，變成廢料
遮陽和纖維，牛奶和記憶。

Report finds less than 10 per cent of American colleges study the bard

Frederick Glaysher

4小時 · 

Pathetic how literary studies have collapsed into banality in the universities...

參考翻譯

Shakespeare not required reading for most literature grads in US

Report finds less than 10 per cent of American colleges study the bard

TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

The Library of Congress Is Uploading 75 Years of Poetry and Literature Recordings

美國桂冠詩人：我願意為你朗讀 75年共2000支錄音檔任你點播

 0

2015-04-24創新觀念, 產業訊息

編譯／陳慧敏

想聽美國桂冠詩人朗讀或介紹自己的作品，過去得要千里迢迢去到華盛頓特區的美國國會圖書館，請館員調出錄音帶，非得在館內聆聽。現在，這座全世界最大的圖書館，已陸續把這些錄音檔案數位化並上網，桂冠詩人彷彿可以無時無刻為你朗讀，可以跟著你進捷運、上健身房、四處旅行，讓詩進入你的日常生活，未來將會有累積 75 年、累積 2000 支錄音檔，可供讀者隨選隨聽。

美國國會圖書館從 1936 年起，就設立英詩講座，這是由曾出版 13 本詩集的富人杭亭頓（Archer M. Huntington）捐助成立，每年由館長徵選名單，最後拍板決選，並聘任一位詩人為「詩顧問」，到 1986 年改名為「桂冠詩人及詩顧問」(the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry)。

旅美詩人謝勳曾撰文介紹美國桂冠詩人。他提到，桂冠詩人年薪 3.5 萬美元，辦公室就在國會圖書館的「詩與文學中心」，國會圖書館提供任何必要的資源，支持他們執行自己所提的詩集推廣方案，他們的使命是協助圖書館推廣詩歌活動，並在文學季系列活動中，朗讀自己的詩作。

藝術部落格 Hyperallergic 報導，為了歡慶美國國家詩月，美國國會圖書館從 4 月 15 日起，把 50 個桂冠詩人朗讀自己詩作或訪談的錄音材料，重新轉檔數位化，上傳到網站，讓讀者可線上免費聆聽。

整個專案計畫是要將國會圖書館累積 75 年的詩集和文學講座，共 2,000 個錄音，全部都上網，未來將每月上傳五個檔案。

這些錄音檔案來自國家圖書館的文學講座活動，由傑佛遜大廈錄音工作室錄製，成為美國當代文學重要而珍貴的影音資料文件。過去都以磁條卡帶保存，只限於館內調閱，上網之後，不僅方便書迷搜尋，更方便隨時聆聽，讓詩和文學可以親近生活。

報導引述此專案經理戈梅茲（Catalina Gomez）說：「我想，能在網頁上閱讀到詩集和散文固然很重要，但是，沒有什麼能比得上聽到文學被大聲地朗讀出來，尤其是作家親自來朗讀。」

戈梅茲說，他喜歡詩人或作家在朗讀時的停頓；或再重新開始開始唸一首詩或一段摘要，這些時刻，都能透過他們作品的聲音，能感受到他們的激昂熱情。

準備好耳機，朗讀即將開

已經上網的桂冠詩人錄音檔案，包括：美國詩人佛洛斯特（Robert Frost）於 1953 年的訪談錄音，佛洛斯特的詩作《火與冰》，正是小說家喬治‧馬汀（George R.R. Martin）的靈感來源，在訪談中，佛洛斯特朗讀他的其他作品，並分享他的創作背景和想法：錄音檔連結

根據謝勳介紹，榮獲 1987 年諾貝爾文學獎的美國詩人布羅茨基（Joseph Brodsky），在桂冠詩人任職期間，曾召集出版商認捐 100 萬本詩集，放在機場、醫院、超市、動物園、旅館房間、卡車休息站等地方，讓詩普及化。而這是在 1992 年五月朗讀詩作的現場：錄音檔連結

美國女詩人庫敏（Maxine Kumin）在 1981 年擔任詩顧問，她關注婦女議題，當時為女性舉辦一系列詩的研討會，大受歡迎，而她也留下了朗讀自身作品的錄音記錄：錄音檔連結

觀點犀利又多產的愛伍德（Margaret Atwood），曾在 1970 年與詩人金內爾（Galway Kinnell）進行對談：錄音檔連結

活到 101 歲才離世的美國詩人庫尼茲（Stanley Kunitz），曾兩度擔任詩顧問，隨後又曾獲選為桂冠詩人，69歲（1974年）時，他也留下了散文和詩作的朗讀記錄：錄音檔連結

Photo from Flickr

資料來源

1. The Library of Congress Is Uploading 75 Years of Poetry and Literature Recordings
2. Library of Congress Begins Posting Its Recorded Poetry Archive
3. library of Congress Launches New Online Poetry Archive, Featuring 75 Years of Classic Poetry Readings
4. 謝勳介紹美國桂冠詩人
5. 美國國會圖書館詩集和文學資料庫搜尋系統

A Prayer For My Daughter - Poem by William Butler Yeats

A Prayer For My Daughter - Poem by William Butler Yeats

ONCE more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind.
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And-under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.
Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-legged smith for man.
It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of plenty is undone.
In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty's very self, has charm made wise.
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.
My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved,
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there's no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.
An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of plenty's horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?
Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy Still.
And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.