酷我-北美枫

[anna]

雪花膏
回忆Amy Winehouse
By Bruce Meyer

在Wevill家一个寂寞之夜
当我安身窗屏旁阅读，
一只飞蛾飞进我点着的蜡烛
跌落燃烧犹如一把火炬之歌。

等到我掐灭火焰，
寻思着是否有任何艺术值得
付出生命，-哪怕是一只暗哑的昆虫，
它现在只余下翅膀上的眼睛。

我观察到其他的飞蛾，天分要低些，
飞舞和无助地拍打着翅膀，
撞击着金属网，它们的扑棱声
好似旧式的影片放映机

运行着无声电影，没有伴奏地，
它们面部的动作被夸大，
每一个脂粉饰抹着反射光
通透着它们直到未来。

每天晚上在睡觉之前，
我的祖母会用洗面奶除去
脸部妆容，更象鬼一样，
而一天就这样奇迹般消失—

同样神奇地，清晨我在不安的步声中
醒来，我以为大自然在歌唱，
那时我的脸依然紧压着窗屏，
而一只母鹿正瞪视着我。
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

雪花膏
回忆Amy Winehouse
By Bruce Meyer

在Wevill家一个寂寞之夜
当我安身窗屏旁阅读，
一只飞蛾飞进我点着的蜡烛
跌落燃烧犹如一把火炬之歌。

等到我掐灭火焰，
寻思着是否有任何艺术值得
付出生命，-哪怕是一只暗哑的昆虫，
它现在只余下翅膀上的眼睛。

我观察到其他的飞蛾，天分要低些，
飞舞和无助地拍打着翅膀，
撞击着金属网，它们的扑棱声
好似旧式的影片放映机

运行着无声电影，没有伴奏地，
它们面部的动作被夸大，
每一个脂粉饰抹着反射光
通透着它们直到未来。

每天晚上在睡觉之前，
我的祖母会用洗面奶除去
脸部妆容，更象鬼一样，
而一天就这样奇迹般消失—

同样神奇地，清晨我在不安的步声中
醒来，我以为大自然在歌唱，
那时我的脸依然紧压着窗屏，
而一只母鹿正瞪视着我。
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

Ah, yes, the cosmetic allusion in the poem for Amy Winehouse.

Amy Winehouse (and my grandmother) both wore a lot of powder on their faces. Powder, according to the old rules of make-up/cosmetics were supposed to make a woman look pale and vulnerable. White powder, in the theatre world, is known as "pancake make-up." You may have seen the old vaudeville comedy schtick where some yells "Make-up" and an actor appears from offstage carrying a bag of flour and hits the victim/comedian on the face with it, leaving a cloud of powder and the victim's face absolutely white. In the poem, I was referring to white powder make-up which is called "pancake" (as I mentioned). There is also a hidden pun in the reference because a pancake (also known as a flapjack) is a form of bread (usually served with butter and maple syrup although the silly British serve it with lemon and sugar and make it more like a crepe). The pancake reference is what ties the poem to the running theme/motif of forms of bread (and every poem in the book contains some sort of bread).

What pancake make-up does, especially in old silent films (take a look at the women in Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton's films) and you will see that their faces light up when they are "pancaked" in white powder.

Now, I am not sure how all that will play out in Chinese (and I leave that to you although the grandmother I'm referring to in the poem was fluent in Cantonese...I had a grandfather on the other side of the family who was fluent in Mandarin...I come from a very weird family because neither of them ever set foot in China and their acquisition of Chinese languages is a long story, each different).

My point in the poem is that Amy Winehouse's powdered face glowed like my grandmother's because both were covered in pancake make-up. I am tying the sound of moth wings on a screen to the sound of a silent film projector and then overlaying the two images. The slight of hand (the trick in all this) is that the entire conceit (the play of images) turns on the word "pancaked".

There is a lot going on in my poems. I really appreciate the fact that you've noticed some of it. I love to play with layers, allusions, rhetorical structures, forms, subtle references, and even the theft of lines from other works of literature (intertextuality). Most readers, alas, are literalists and they don't bother to see that I've not only given them the picture of an onion, but all of the onion's layers in the process. A Korean translator once cursed me for doing this, but it is part of the fun of the English language where one can say a great deal by simply saying something simply.

-bruce
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

Ah, yes, the cosmetic allusion in the poem for Amy Winehouse.

Amy Winehouse (and my grandmother) both wore a lot of powder on their faces. Powder, according to the old rules of make-up/cosmetics were supposed to make a woman look pale and vulnerable. White powder, in the theatre world, is known as "pancake make-up." You may have seen the old vaudeville comedy schtick where some yells "Make-up" and an actor appears from offstage carrying a bag of flour and hits the victim/comedian on the face with it, leaving a cloud of powder and the victim's face absolutely white. In the poem, I was referring to white powder make-up which is called "pancake" (as I mentioned). There is also a hidden pun in the reference because a pancake (also known as a flapjack) is a form of bread (usually served with butter and maple syrup although the silly British serve it with lemon and sugar and make it more like a crepe). The pancake reference is what ties the poem to the running theme/motif of forms of bread (and every poem in the book contains some sort of bread).

What pancake make-up does, especially in old silent films (take a look at the women in Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton's films) and you will see that their faces light up when they are "pancaked" in white powder.

Now, I am not sure how all that will play out in Chinese (and I leave that to you although the grandmother I'm referring to in the poem was fluent in Cantonese...I had a grandfather on the other side of the family who was fluent in Mandarin...I come from a very weird family because neither of them ever set foot in China and their acquisition of Chinese languages is a long story, each different).

My point in the poem is that Amy Winehouse's powdered face glowed like my grandmother's because both were covered in pancake make-up. I am tying the sound of moth wings on a screen to the sound of a silent film projector and then overlaying the two images. The slight of hand (the trick in all this) is that the entire conceit (the play of images) turns on the word "pancaked".

There is a lot going on in my poems. I really appreciate the fact that you've noticed some of it. I love to play with layers, allusions, rhetorical structures, forms, subtle references, and even the theft of lines from other works of literature (intertextuality). Most readers, alas, are literalists and they don't bother to see that I've not only given them the picture of an onion, but all of the onion's layers in the process. A Korean translator once cursed me for doing this, but it is part of the fun of the English language where one can say a great deal by simply saying something simply.

-bruce
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com