刘洪彬: 《诗人、诗歌和诗学》
当诗人遇见爱神-1452 12/12 17078
在中国时间之外写汉诗, 在异乡建家园，当诗人在异国的精神王国里缔造了一个中国, 诗人自己便成了立法者和君王。诗人自己就是一个中国。在这个国度里, 诗人可以绝对地保持自己的个性，以及由此为基础的、可以抵御灵魂腐败的个人主义。中国随诗人流亡。我个人流亡的一个周期结束。诗人是语言的仆人, 更是诗歌艺术的奴隶。他不期望得到什么, 而是将他自己的全部交给诗歌。诗人的政治任务是维护自己语言的神圣性。本世纪以来,汉语言中发生了几次名曰革命的浩劫。汉语被滥用、虐待得时间太久,因此诗人应是自己母语的临床医生。一个当代中国诗人的使命是在中国古典诗歌的辉煌与现代汉语的废墟之间架起一座历史的桥梁。这也是汉语诗歌本身在绝望中的希望。
诗人在专制国家里凭写诗可以被捧为民族英雄，这不是诗人本来的角色。布罗茨基 (JOSEPH BRODSKY)在论及诗人时说: “诗人是自己的神话中的英雄(或主角)”。
我们都为词语所塑造, 并被词语写在这个世界上。一个词语可以是一个世界。做为一个诗人，他既是创造词语的主体, 同时他也是被词语创造的客体。抱着这样的谦卑和人性的精神, 我们写作并事奉语言。使这个世界皈依诗是每一个诗人的使命, 那时诗歌的正义(惩恶扬善)得以伸张。我曾经说过，抵抗专制和邪恶，我使用的不是武器, 而是美。
1997年
英译版：
ON THE POET, POETRY AND POETICS
Writing poetry is the beginning of internal exile. The spiritual exile of poetry writing eventually leads to physical exile. The poet is either devoured by exile – or its accomplice, death – or else becomes stronger.The poet’s good fortune depends on whether he can accept the fate of exile without resentment. This is what Confucius meant by "know your destiny." A poet can turn solitude into a personal luxury, or poverty into a boundary stone from which to observe the world of ordinary people. His poverty makes him aware of his plenty at the same time as it embarrasses him in reality; in a more civilized living environment, the poet can escape poverty through his creative labor. As loneliness, poverty, illness and the passage of time accelerate the poet’s advancement to the brink of death, the last words to gurgle in his throat are gratitude and praise. Writing Chinese poetry in a different time zone, making a foreign country a homeland; when the poet in a foreign land creates a China in the kingdom of his mind, he becomes its legislator and king.The poet himself is a China. In this world the poet can decisively preserve his personality, and make individualism the basis on which he resists the corruption of his soul. China follows the poet into exile. My own cycle of exile reaches an end.
The poet is the servant of language, and even more the slave of the art of poetry. He hopes for nothing but to give his all to poetry.The political task of a poet is to defend the sacredness of his language. Since the beginning of the 1900s, a number of disasters have befallen the Chinese language under the name of "revolution." With the Chinese language abused and misused for too long, the poet should be a clinician for this mother tongue.The mission of the contemporary Chinese poet is to build a historical bridge between the glory of Chinese classical poetry and the ruins of modern Chinese language. This is the hope of Chinese poetry in its despair. In autocratic countries, a poet can be praised as a national hero. I disdain this role. As Joseph Brodsky says, "A poet is a hero in his own myth."
We are all molded by words, and are written on the world by words..A word can be a world. A poet is both the subject who creates words and the object created by words. In a spirit of humility and humanity,we write and serve the language. It is every poet’s mission to convert this world to poetry; until then, poetic justice can be done. I have said before, what I use to resist tyranny and evil is not a weapon, but beauty.
September 1997
Translated by Liu Hongbin with the assistance of Stacy Mosher and Perry Link
BY LIU HONGBIN
＊附注：
刘洪彬的诗论被英国《卫报》发表的《中国的超级诗歌》
http://www.theguardian.com/
香港中文大学收藏此文稿，可供读者查阅。
http://archspace.lib.cuhk.edu.
http://fixcentenario.blogspot.
约翰.阿什伯瑞论刘洪彬
如果洪彬流亡的语言能教导我们一件事情的话， 那就是相信自由能（将会）超越一个充满偏见的政体，
刘洪彬是今天任何语言写作中最优秀的诗人之一。
If Hongbin’s language of exile can teach us one thing, it is that belief in freedom can (and will) transcend a regime of prejudice — even if it comes from within.
Liu Hongbin is one of the finest poets writing in any language today.
约翰.阿什伯瑞 (John Ashbery 1927--) 美国当代最优秀的诗人， 曾获过美国所有的文学大奖，包括普利策, 全国图书奖, 麦克阿瑟奖。
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