What To Escape From?

影云
楼主 (文学峸)

What To Escape From?

 

当秋天到来时
果子已从枝头
逃到摩天大厦的楼顶

 

Autumn is a harvest season of joy and peace. But the first stanza of the poem presents an unusual autumn image: the ripe fruits escaped to the top of the skyscrapers, which is striking and perplexing as resonating the poem title << Vertex >>. Then, what did the ripe fruits escape from? Have they succeeded? What will they do after seeing the blue sky at the vertex?

The second stanza starts with a similar line, accentuating the arrival of the season, with a subtle difference from the first line of the first stanza by adding some adverbs omitted to better portray those dreadful and scurry fruits and conversely restoring the season’s peace. The poem ends abruptly after this line “我敲响了键盘" without any hints provided but leaving room for imagination.

The poem "Vertex”, written in everyday language, contrasts the fleeing fruits and the calm “me” when autumn arrives to build up a set of intriguing and surrealistic imagery. As mentioned above, the different moods in the two lines about the arrival of autumn create different rhythms: desperate and dread in the fleeing and settling to write. A ripe fruit destined to be eaten or rot to death tries to escape from its fate. Seeing the blue sky high above might alleviate it out of fear momentarily but does not provide a permanent exit out of the hopeless plight. The soothing mood in the second stanza implies the joy and peace from writing to enrich and rejuvenate our spirits. Maybe, when the harvest season arrives, we are forced to face the eternal struggle in humanity - fear for the fragility of our physical existence and the longing for persistence of our spirituality – then flight or fight?

A ripe fruit is a symbol associated with primitiveness. Back to the days when human beings evolved into Homo sapiens, they went hunting and gathering fruits for survival. The juxtaposition of ripe fruits and high-rise buildings brings out the contrast between primitiveness and modernity, which is also continued in this line “我敲响了键盘”.  A keyboard, a modern tool, is explicitly associated with an ancient drum through the word, “敲响”, hitting a keyboard and hitting a drum.

A drum, presumably the oldest musical instruments made by human, first appeared in the Mesopotamian civilization around 6000 BC. Since then, it has embodied universal life force energy that connects everything and everyone and often used in religious rituals or ceremonies.

In the novel “Lost Love”, how a shaman of the San Bushmen, the oldest inhabitants of southern Africa, conducts a curing ritual and establishes connection to the other world is evocatively written.

"在非洲,桑人被其他黑人部族认为可以通灵,因为他们有一个神秘的宗教仪式——幻舞。仪式上,全体部落的成员围在篝火旁,首先要杀死一头巨大的牛羚,用牛羚的血在不同世界间建立联系。然后,在单调的击鼓声中,巫师带领人们开始围着篝火长时间地转圈。一边转一边摇头摆手,最后所有的人都无法行走,有的跪在地上用头不停撞地,有的像动物一样爬行,有的仰面躺倒失去知觉,很多人开始流鼻血,出现幻觉或者意识丧失,眼中的人物变得又细又长,长着各种动物的脑袋。这时巫师就通灵了,可以进行医疗、祁雨或者与冥界的亡灵交流。"

A great poem is “within chaos there is order”, where the complexity interwoven by time, space, memories, emotions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, etc., is unfolded layer by layer through our analytical reading and thinking - a journey to nourish our soul.

 


为什么逃亡?


更多我的博客文章>>>

 

What To Be Escaped From? 为什么逃亡? 季羡林在德国时的爱情之后 季羡林在德国时的爱情之后 Age of Innocence
a
applebee3
或许你与立的理解是相同的。我的理解与你不同,比如对于死亡,我觉得那是很自然的结果,我不理解为绝望,就像回归土地。

他那天的那三首诗歌?我也有自己的理解,在我的意象里。我不喜言说,或许。或许也可尝试如你一样解读?我是看了你中文版的《为什么逃亡》。

影云
谢谢苹果蜜的留言。有不同的看法才好才有趣。如果都一致,就可能有问题了
影云
死亡也有很多种情形。一个在喀布尔机场被突如其来炸死的人与一个被告知还有两个月活的人是完全不同心理的。
因为写的比中文还好。准确来说,是有些不同。这个非常有意思。我觉得用双语写作,可以体会不同语言对思想情感的影响。
有时用英文写的诗,感觉用中文说不清楚,有时相反。但感觉似乎英文的表达能力更强一些。可能是词汇和句式的复杂。中国古文表达了更弱一些
a
applebee3
一个是状态,一个是理解(比如文化性质的)。这两人或许在事态未发生前也有过对于命运,死亡之类的思考?身体死亡是瞬间的事。
影云
的确,我在写英文的时候,感觉到思维的变化。在语序里,我更喜欢英文结构的复杂性所带来的表达的自由,允许思考的深入。
影云
不太明白你说得。你说得是理论吗?
影云
有同感。是不是古文是抽象的,靠意境与想象去弥补?
中间小谢
My poems below are far better,

composed in a style of artificial intelligence. I can keep producing pieces like these just by pretending myself an A.I. You can do that too.

If you can derive a lot of meanings from Li's poem, so can you from mine. You can derive all these in here and more. For instance, agriculture vs. indistrialism, Nature vs. the man-made etc.

My point is, your interpretation for a poem of this kind is "arbitrary" which is just an other word for "meaningless".

a
applebee3
我觉得探讨是比较有意思的。
a
applebee3
不是理论。我也是揣摩,尝试性的想象与理解别人的生存状态,这都包括物理现象与心灵状态?
影云
太复杂了。你若能举出例子解释一些,我可能会容易理解些。谢谢。
a
applebee3
你下面的诗,如果我取名就叫逃离。这个逃离可不是灰溜溜的。
中间小谢
My poems below are "arbitrary" too.

I was just being playful with Ying Yun when I saw her interpretation of Li's poem yesterday. But I guess Ying Yun overlooked my "great" work.

影云
What you said did not surprise me. Nowadays still many people d

doubt Jackson Pollock’s dripping technique. 

I read your poem and think that they are too 80s, kind of pretentious, not deep/solid/authentic enough. 

a
applebee3
我已经说了很清楚了。你可能心思不在。
影云
Hopefully my words don't hurt you - I am very sensitive to the

authenticity in writing. I instantly know what's genuine and what is not.

中间小谢
My observation: English converges, Chinese diverges

If your poem tends to converge, Enlish may be the proper medium for it. Vice versa.

清水河谷
了不起,能写出这么地道的英文!赞才女!
影云
谢谢清水兄:)
影云
小谢兄下次示范一个?