美国国家公共电台 NPR Randall Mann's 'Proprietary' Reinvents Classic San Francisco Poetry

 

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Randall Mann captures the San Francisco of his youth in his new poetry collection, "Proprietary¹". Our reviewer Tess Taylor says he does it while also reinventing the city for the dot-com age.

TESS TAYLOR, BYLINE²: Randall Mann's childhood is gone. His boyhood is gone. His home state is gone. People he has loved are gone, and the city he knew them in is rapidly changing. The poems in this collection also straddle the distance between a San Francisco of hedonistic pleasures and a San Francisco of corporate³ doublespeak. In echoing that earlier city, Mann evokes⁴ Thom Gunn, a noted⁵ San Francisco poet or even Baudelaire, a poet of raw urban desire. But in threading these poems about lust⁶, longing⁷ and alienation⁸ through a brave new world of org charts and web portals, Mann imagines anew what it means to connect or to feel at a loss in the age of the Internet.

Poems ask what it means to be sincere, drawing near, he says, to someone I would like to like or later, as he puts it, feeling just shy of feeling. Poems edge the complex bafflements of tech guru life like this one called "Proximity⁹", where a little white bus ferries a south to the technical mouth of the bay. And the poem says, (reading) my door is always open even when I shut it. I sit seven boxes below the CEO on the org chart. It's an art - the value add, the compound noun. What does add value, really? What does it mean to belong to a thing, to a self, to speech to one's memories?

These are poems of getting older in a precisely¹⁰ lighted room. Some of the poems are also about losing friends to drugs or AIDS. It was Baudelaire who said that the form of a city changes faster than the heart of a mortal, and man's poems find themselves in the aftershocks. I am legally obligated to spare you the particulars, writes Mann. That may be. But reading these poems, we also find ourselves.

SIEGEL: In the book is "Proprietary" by Randall Mann. Tess Taylor had our review. Her most recent book is "Work" And Days."

1 proprietary   

n.所有权，所有的；独占的；业主

参考例句：

• We had to take action to protect the proprietary technology.我们必须采取措施保护专利技术。
• Proprietary right is the foundation of jus rerem.所有权是物权法之根基。

2 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。

3 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

4 evokes   

产生，引起，唤起( evoke的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The film evokes chilling reminders of the war. 这部电影使人们回忆起战争的可怕场景。
• Each type evokes antibodies which protect against the homologous. 每一种类型都能产生抗同种病毒的抗体。

5 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

6 lust   

n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望

参考例句：

• He was filled with lust for power.他内心充满了对权力的渴望。
• Sensing the explorer's lust for gold, the chief wisely presented gold ornaments as gifts.酋长觉察出探险者们垂涎黄金的欲念，就聪明地把金饰品作为礼物赠送给他们。

7 longing   

n.（for）渴望

参考例句：

• Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
• His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。

8 alienation   

n.疏远；离间；异化

参考例句：

• The new policy resulted in the alienation of many voters.新政策导致许多选民疏远了。
• As almost every conceivable contact between human beings gets automated,the alienation index goes up.随着人与人之间几乎一切能想到的接触方式的自动化，感情疏远指数在不断上升。

9 proximity   

n.接近，邻近

参考例句：

• Marriages in proximity of blood are forbidden by the law.法律规定禁止近亲结婚。
• Their house is in close proximity to ours.他们的房子很接近我们的。

10 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。