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VOA慢速英语2010-People in America - Lucille Clifton, 1936

时间:2010-05-05 02:44来源:互联网 提供网友:melissa_lili   字体: [ ]
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I'm Steve Ember.

BARBARA KLEIN: And I'm Barbara Klein with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about the award-winning poet and writer Lucille Clifton. Critics call her one of the greatest writers of our time.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: Lucille Clifton began writing poetry when she was about ten years old. She had developed an interest in poetry because of her mother, Thelma Sayles. Her mother was also a poet although her poems were never published. As a child Lucille would sit on her mother's lap and listen as she read poetry. She learned to love words and the power of words. That stayed with her as she grew.

There was another experience that stayed with her, too. Once, her mother was offered a chance to publish her poetry. But her husband, Samuel Sayles, ordered her not to do it. In anger, and sorrow, Missus Sayles threw her poems into a fire. That memory also stayed with Lucille. She would write about it years later in her poem called "fury". Like many of Lucille Clifton's poems, "fury" is personal. It deals with her own experiences.

Lucille Clifton's poetry is known for being simple, truthful1 and direct.

BARBARA KLEIN: Lucille Clifton believed that it was important for poets to write about their own memories. She said poetry comes out of the life of the poet. That, she said, is the only way that poetry can reach other people. Lucille Clifton's poems deal with life and death, religion and politics, motherhood and family. They tell stories of racism2, sexism and injustice3. They tell of terrible things done to humans by humans.

In one poem she calls it the extraordinary evil in ordinary men. In the poem "Cruelty," she takes a different look at violence.

LUCILLE CLIFTON READING “CRUELTY”

don’t talk to me about cruelty
or what i am capable of.

when i wanted the roaches dead i wanted them dead
and i killed them. i took a broom to their country

and smashed and sliced without warning
without stopping and i smiled all the time i was doing it.

it was a holocaust4 of roaches, bodies,
parts of bodies, red all over the ground.

i didn’t ask their names.
they had no names worth knowing.

now i watch myself whenever i enter a room.
i never know what i might do.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: Lucille Clifton was born Thelma Lucille Sayles in Depew, New York in ninety thirty-six. She was named Thelma after her mother. Lucille was the name of one of her father's ancestors. Neither mother nor daughter was happy with the name Thelma. When the younger one got older she chose to call herself Lucille.

While her mother taught her to love poetry, her father gave her the gift of storytelling. He would tell Lucille interesting stories about her ancestors, especially the one named Lucille who was his grandmother. Samuel Clifton said she was the first black woman to be legally hanged in the state of Virginia. Lucille Clifton wrote about it in her poem called "Lucy."

LUCILLE CLIFTON READING “LUCY”

(MUSIC)

BARBARA KLEIN: Lucille was the first one in her family to graduate from high school. In nineteen fifty-three, she won a scholarship to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C. She studied there for two years. Then she returned to New York to attend Fredonia State Teachers College.

Fred Clifton was a professor of philosophy at a local university. The poet and the professor met, fell in love and were married in nineteen fifty-eight. They moved to Baltimore, Maryland in the nineteen sixties. They had six children over a seven-year period, four girls and two boys. Lucille Clifton wrote poetry while raising her family.

STEVE EMBER: She released her first book of poetry in nineteen sixty-nine. The book was called “Good Times.” The New York Times called it one of the best books of the year. The poems are about ancestry5 and family, oppression and politics. They use a small amount of words to communicate big ideas. That was Lucille Clifton's style.

She often talked about her love for words. She loved the sound of words and the way the words felt in her mouth. She loved finding interesting ways to use words to express what was happening in the world.

BARBARA KLEIN: Unlike her mother, Lucille Clifton’s poetry was anything but traditional. Her poems do not rhyme or follow a special kind of pattern. They do not use fancy words. They do not deal in make believe. Her poetry is known for being simple, truthful and direct. It is written the way people speak, in a casual, relaxed language. There is very little punctuation6 and even less capitalization. Many of the poems are uncomfortably honest. Lucille Clifton often said that she tried to comfort the afflicted8 and afflict7 the comfortable. Over the years, she seems to have perfected that art. Here, she reads her poem "Admonitions."

LUCILLE CLIFTON READING “ADMONITIONS”

Boys
I don't promise you nothing
but this what you pawn9

I will redeem10 what you steal
I will conceal11 my private silence to
your public guilt12, is all i got

Girls
First time a white man
opens his fly like a good thing
we'll just laugh, laugh real loud my
black women

Children
When they ask you
why is your mama so funny

Say
She is a poet
she don't have no sense

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: Lucille Clifton published more than thirty books during her career. They include ten books of poetry and twenty children’s books. She released her first children’s books in nineteen seventy, a year after her first book of poetry was published. Her book “Some of the Days of Everett Anderson” became the first in a series of books about a young African-American boy growing up in the city. Years later, the seventh book in the series, “Everett Anderson’s Goodbye,” was awarded the Coretta Scott King Award.

Miss Clifton received many other honors during her long career. She won a National Book Award in two thousand for her poetry collection “Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems.” She was nominated for three Pulitzer Prize Poetry Awards. She is the only poet to have received two Pulitzer nominations13 in a single year.

Her “Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir” and her collection “Next: New Poems” were both nominated for Pulitzer Prizes in nineteen eighty-seven.

BARBARA KLEIN: Miss Clifton also won an Emmy Award, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Los Angeles Times Poetry Award. In two thousand seven, she became the first black woman to receive the Ruth Lily Poetry Prize. It is considered one of the highest honors a poet can receive. It includes a one hundred thousand dollar award.

In addition to her writing, Lucille Clifton spent many years teaching poetry. She served as a writer in residence at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland. She also taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Saint Mary’s College of Maryland and Duke University in North Carolina. And she was the first African-American poet laureate for the state of Maryland.

Lucille Clifton died in two thousand ten from problems related to cancer. She was seventy-three years old. She leaves behind a written record of her life and legacy14 through the words of her poems.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: This program was written and produced by June Simms. I’m Steve Ember.

BARBARA KLEIN: And I’m Barbara Klein. Transcripts15, MP3s and podcasts of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. And you can find us on Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.

 
 


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 truthful OmpwN     
adj.真实的,说实话的,诚实的
参考例句:
  • You can count on him for a truthful report of the accident.你放心,他会对事故作出如实的报告的。
  • I don't think you are being entirely truthful.我认为你并没全讲真话。
2 racism pSIxZ     
n.民族主义;种族歧视(意识)
参考例句:
  • He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
  • Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。
3 injustice O45yL     
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利
参考例句:
  • They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
  • All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。
4 holocaust dd5zE     
n.大破坏;大屠杀
参考例句:
  • The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
  • Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀,因为他像希特勒一样残忍。
5 ancestry BNvzf     
n.祖先,家世
参考例句:
  • Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
  • He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。
6 punctuation 3Sbxk     
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。
7 afflict px3zg     
vt.使身体或精神受痛苦,折磨
参考例句:
  • I wish you wouldn't afflict me with your constant complains.我希望你不要总是抱怨而使我苦恼。
  • There are many illnesses,which afflict old people.有许多疾病困扰着老年人。
8 afflicted aaf4adfe86f9ab55b4275dae2a2e305a     
使受痛苦,折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • About 40% of the country's population is afflicted with the disease. 全国40%左右的人口患有这种疾病。
  • A terrible restlessness that was like to hunger afflicted Martin Eden. 一阵可怕的、跟饥饿差不多的不安情绪折磨着马丁·伊登。
9 pawn 8ixyq     
n.典当,抵押,小人物,走卒;v.典当,抵押
参考例句:
  • He is contemplating pawning his watch.他正在考虑抵押他的手表。
  • It looks as though he is being used as a political pawn by the President.看起来他似乎被总统当作了政治卒子。
10 redeem zCbyH     
v.买回,赎回,挽回,恢复,履行(诺言等)
参考例句:
  • He had no way to redeem his furniture out of pawn.他无法赎回典当的家具。
  • The eyes redeem the face from ugliness.这双眼睛弥补了他其貌不扬之缺陷。
11 conceal DpYzt     
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽
参考例句:
  • He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方,他只好隐瞒身份。
  • He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。
12 guilt 9e6xr     
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责
参考例句:
  • She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
  • Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。
13 nominations b4802078efbd3da66d5889789cd2e9ca     
n.提名,任命( nomination的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Nominations are invited for the post of party chairman. 为党主席职位征集候选人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Much coverage surrounded his abortive bids for the 1960,1964, and 1968 Republican Presidential nominations. 许多消息报道都围绕着1960年、1964年和1968年他为争取提名为共和党总统候选人所做努力的失败。 来自辞典例句
14 legacy 59YzD     
n.遗产,遗赠;先人(或过去)留下的东西
参考例句:
  • They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
  • He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。
15 transcripts 525c0b10bb61e5ddfdd47d7faa92db26     
n.抄本( transcript的名词复数 );转写本;文字本;副本
参考例句:
  • Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样,都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
  • You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书,你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句
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