The Major Young Poets

在图书馆里看见这本书，有点穿越时空的感觉。:) 书是1971年出的，编辑说young的标准是35岁以下，这八位诗人的平均年龄是31岁。38年过去，不知道这里还有多少人还是诗人……甚至不知道他们是不是还都活着。

书里收的诗，大都是在六十年代写就的。我只认识 Simic 和 Strand. 一方面，是我比较孤陋寡闻，另一方面，大约也是大浪淘沙。:)

里面还有Simic的蟑螂诗，管风琴同学的罗切斯特先生。:) 这是早的一首Roach，不是他后来写的Night Clerk in a Roach Motel. 晚上回家再把它敲出来。

The Major Young Poets
Selected and Introduced by Al Lee

The World Publishing Company
New York · Cleveland
1971

1. Marvin Bell. 2. Michael Benedict.
3. Wm Brown. 4. Charles Simic.
5. Mark Strand. 6. James Tate.
7. C. K. Williams. 8. David P. Young.

××××××××××××××××××
这个Wm. 布朗同学好像和查理·布朗一样可怜，帮他超度一首吧……维基上都没有搜出他的网页。看了他名字下的题目，似乎都比较入世，关注的是六十年代的政治和社会问题，所以显得有些过时。除了这一首。怎么像是今天才写的。

SIX KINDS OF LIGHT ON WALL STREET

Wm Brown

One
This is the light in which
a blind broker remembers it--faces
half gone when the lights went out
and he stopped looking, the shadows
missing. Or it is the sun on a suicide's
memory of the Crash.

Two
Blame, like soot, darkens
these buildings, but not too much
a day, blackens the air
around them. Most sinners
live in a sky, out of reach,
with clean wives
and glorious plumbing.

Three
Blessed is the last pigeon
in the world, cooing his life away
outside my window. Venice
is clear of them, the sky
down to the roofs is empty, the Pope
has lost his divisions. Make way
for the rise of something.

Four
Ghostly Delmonico! How was it
when the lights went on and the new rich
gorged while no one was watching?
"It was
the way you imagine things; ladies
both pale and sexy, salads of money,
horses, wine. It was everything
I've wanted to be close to." It's gone,
chef. On your birthday
a new upper crust was taking over.
Their bellies are flact as a runner's;
among miles of slaughtered steers
they do without.

Five
The cold breaks. Up there the month passes,
cloud under cloud. Calm down.
There's no spring here on the sidewalk,
only up in the air. But the sky
is a walled garden behind a house
for some ole woman to walk in, wealthy,
and think the whole earth
is growing. It may be. This year
I've found the patience of the child
Carnegie, before he left
the destitute fogs of Scotland.