PBS高端访谈:反对军政府的阿根廷诗人逝世

 　　JUDY WOODRUFF:Finally tonight: remembering a poet who challenged his country's military dictators.

　　Jeff is back with that.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: Juan Gelman was an Argentine poet who became a major literary figure throughout Latin America and in Spain. He was also known for his fight against the military junta¹ that ruled Argentina in the 1970s and '80s, and for the personal tragedy that came from that.

　　His daughter was kidnapped and tortured. His son and daughter-in-law were killed. And their child, Gelman's granddaughter, was taken and given away for adoption³. Gelman finally located her in 2000.

　　Juan Gelman died at age 83 at his home in Mexico City this week.

　　Here to tell us more is Ilan Stavans, a writer and professor of Latin American culture at Amherst College. He's editor of "The FSG Book of Twentieth Century Latin-American Poetry."

　　First, tell us a little bit about Juan Gelman the poet. What accounted for his prominence⁴ in the Spanish-speaking world? What was his poetry like?

　　ILAN STAVANS, Professor of Latin American Culture, Amherst College: Juan Gelman belonged to a tradition in Latin American poetry that connected the people with the word, the spoken word, the written word, the tradition best represented by Pablo Neruda.

　　In his case, Juan Gelman's case, he understood that the role of poetry was to speak truth to power. And throughout the Dirty War, the Guerra Sucia, in Argentina, he took very seriously the role that, as a poet, he needed to bear witness to the situation that the country was going through and to allow his poetry to last beyond the daily massacres⁵, the disappearances⁶ that were taking place.

　　He was very shrewd. He knew that a poem is more powerful, ultimately, than a gun or a hand grenade, in that a poem can change people's minds. And that is what his poetry ended up doing.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: And the themes that he addressed went to that? Or -- I saw in one -- the end of one poem that you translated called "End": "Poetry is a way of living. Look at the people at your side. Do they eat, suffer, sing, cry?"

　　He was really looking at common people.

　　ILAN STAVANS: He was looking at common people. Jeff, he was looking at common things. He was looking at our environment, at nature in general, and trying to give those objects that surround us the place that they have, recognizing them, birds, the ocean, a city, a car.

　　They are part of our daily life, and we barely notice them. And through his poetry, he wanted to connect us with the environment. He wanted to connect us with the emotions that we feel. And he wanted to use poetry as a way to explain what the DNA² of an entire civilization was about. The beauty of his poetry is that he found a style that connected the entire Argentine people with the continent of Latin America and the world entire by allowing him to speak about the very daily, very mundane⁷, very common happenings that make a life, and that as a poet he wanted to bear witness to them.

　　He understood that poetry and politics go hand in hand. And the moment he died in Argentina, the entire country came to a halt. It understood that a part of its soul had left. And yet the poetry that Juan Gelman left us with in a beautiful style, a style that often breaks the sentences, that uses or doesn't use punctuation⁸ depending on the circumstance, also often inventing new words, lasts -- will last him and will squarely integrate him into a tradition that I think will be read for generations to come.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: Well, let me ask you to finish then with one of his poems. And you chose a short one called "Epitaph."

　　I will ask you to read in the English translation for us.

　　ILAN STAVANS: My pleasure.

　　"A bird lived in me. A flower traveled in my blood. My heart was a violin. I loved and didn't love. But sometimes I was loved. I also was happy: about the spring, the hands together, what is happy. I say man has to be! Herein lies a bird, a flower, a violin."

　　JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Ilan Stavans on the life and work of Juan Gelman, thank you so much.

　　ILAN STAVANS: My pleasure. Thank you for giving poetry a space.

1 junta   

n.团体；政务审议会

参考例句：

• The junta reacted violently to the perceived threat to its authority.军政府感到自身权力受威胁而进行了激烈反击。
• A military junta took control of the country.一个军政权控制了国家。

2 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

3 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

4 prominence   

n.突出；显著；杰出；重要

参考例句：

• He came to prominence during the World Cup in Italy.他在意大利的世界杯赛中声名鹊起。
• This young fashion designer is rising to prominence.这位年轻的时装设计师的声望越来越高。

5 massacres   

大屠杀( massacre的名词复数 )； 惨败

参考例句：

• The time is past for guns and killings and massacres. 动不动就用枪、动不动就杀、大规模屠杀的时代已经过去了。 来自教父部分
• Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their recollection. 近来那些不可胜数的屠杀，在他们的头脑中记忆犹新。

6 disappearances   

n.消失( disappearance的名词复数 )；丢失；失踪；失踪案

参考例句：

• Most disappearances are the result of the terrorist activity. 大多数的失踪案都是恐怖分子造成的。 来自辞典例句
• The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. 间谍活动、叛党卖国、逮捕拷打、处决灭迹，这种事情永远不会完。 来自英汉文学

7 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

8 punctuation   

n.标点符号，标点法

参考例句：

• My son's punctuation is terrible.我儿子的标点符号很糟糕。
• A piece of writing without any punctuation is difficult to understand.一篇没有任何标点符号的文章是很难懂的。