Poet Mary Oliver: a Solitary Walk


　　Interviewed by Stephen Ratiner in Christian Science Monitor, December 9, 1992
　　
　　WHEN Mary Oliver talks about her work - something she is quite reluctant to do, fending off interviews and media proposals - there is an austerity, a quiet determination to her thought that brings to mind an earlier century. The discipline of her writing life might seem more natural in a time before every living room was plugged into the perpetual tide of images and ideas, when an individual cultivated the solitude and curiosity of the inner life.
　　
　　This is not to say Ms. Oliver's poems aren't thoroughly contemporary in style, voice, and motive. It's just that, during our conversation, I kept getting the idea that Emily Dickinson would have found her a most agreeable next-door neighbor.
　　
　　As a young writer, Ms. Oliver was not crushed by the intense isolation and general lack of support peculiar to the poet's vocation. Nor was her equanimity dramatically altered when her book "American Primitive" burst on the national scene, winning the 1984 Pulitzer Prize. This November, her "New and Selected Poems" was honored with the National Book Award as well.
　　
　　She continues to thrive on the simple necessities of her daily routine: time to be alone, a place to walk and observe, and the opportunity to carry the world back to the page. Like Emily before her, Mary Oliver focuses on the luminous particularities of experience, savoring the simple and the astonishing occurrences of the natural world for the wisdom embedded in beauty and for the mysteries hovering just beneath the glittering surfaces.
　　
　　Her poetry is also an extended investigation into the nature of the self. But in her vision, the self is a much more open and encompassing concept than the succinct identities to which we affix our names. The "Mary Oliver" of these poems has rain passing through her, contains swans and gannets, pine groves and waterfalls, and the uncanny sense that, at any moment, the world is poised on the verge of speech.
　　
　　Steven Ratiner: Reading your "New and Selected Poems," I was impressed by the utter consistency of the book. Even though it spans nearly three decades of work, it feels as if it were a single collection, one long unfolding.
　　
　　Mary Oliver: Oh, that's wonderful. ... It's what I intended and would like it to feel like. If I started over, I think I just would write one book and keep adding to that book.
　　
　　But certainly it's more than literary style that unifies the poems. What's the driving force that has steered you on one smooth path?
　　
　　Well, style I guess is no more than the apparatus that you try for in order to say whatever it is you wanted to say. ... Emerson said that the poem was a "confession of faith." I think you have to have some sense of overall vision in your work, or upon what does the work feed? What does it mean? What does it matter? What's its impetus? I have always had that, that sense of vision. That wish to - what? Show, I suppose. ... The wish to demonstrate a joie.
　　
　　How did you keep from the trap many younger poets slip into - the sway of imitation, the pull of literary fashion?
　　
　　I think a couple of things. For one, I never, myself, was in a workshop setting. ... I was chronologically slightly before that era. I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession. ... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life. And I didn't question if I should - I just kept sharpening the pencils!
　　
　　You never had the insecurity of "Am I doing this right?"
　　
　　Oh, I never have felt yet that I've done it right. (Laughs.) This is the marvelous thing about language. It can always be done better. But I begin to see what works and what doesn't work. I begin to rely more on style, which is, as I say, apparatus or method, than on luck, prayers, or long hours of work. I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read. I imitated - shamelessly , fearlessly. I was endlessly discontent. I looked at words and couldn't believe the largess of their sound - the whole sound structure of stops and sibilants, and things which I speak about now with students! All such mechanics have always fascinated me. Still do!
　　
　　But the solitariness that was at the heart of your discovery of poetry is largely ruled out by the university workshop model. Are younger writers missing this essential experience?
　　
　　It was central for me - I don't know if it was essential, really. It's the way I happened to do it. Also, I take walks. Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious. It's a joke here in town: I take a walk and I'm found standing still somewhere. This is not a walk to arrive; this is a walk that's part of a process. [Poet] Donald Hall takes short naps. Naps work for him, open the door to the "vatic" voice, as he calls it. Something else will work for somebody else, perhap s. It's a matter of trying everything you can try, just to see what will work for you.
　　
　　And if we found you, standing transfixed, would that be the beginning of the poem? Would you begin to write right then?
　　
　　Well, sometimes. I keep a notebook with me all the time - and I scribble.... You begin to get your felt reaction in a phrase, perhaps. But, you know, I've said before that the angel doesn't sit on your shoulder unless the pencil's in your hand. ... And in truth that [is only] given after years of desiring it, being open to it, and walking toward it.
　　
　　The poet William Stafford describes his morning discipline, sitting at his desk, being prepared to receive whatever his imagination brings. But it seems your focus is on the prolonged work that takes place after that gift is received.
　　
　　Yes, but I don't see how you can separate the pleasure from the work. There is nothing better than work. Work is also play, children know that. Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty. But I feel writing is work, and I feel it's also play - bound together.
　　
　　Yet you approach the task with a sense of great responsibility.
Oh, yes. It's my responsibility if I choose to do it, to write as well as I possibly can. I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us. We don't have to rely totally on experience if we can do things in our imagination. ... It's the only way in which you can live more lives than your own. You can escape your own time, your own sensibility, your own narrowness of vision.
　　
　　In most of the poems, there seems to be a natural three-stage process in the experience. The first involves seeing, a careful scrutiny of the subject. But that seeing evolves into a deeper focus, a heightened awareness. Suddenly we become present to the moment. What is that seeing beyond seeing?
　　
　　It's like an epiphany; I see something and look at it and look at it. I see myself going closer and closer just to see it better, as though to see its meaning out of its physical form. And then, I take something emblematic from it and then it transcends the actual.
　　
　　Yes, that's just how I thought of the third stage in the process: transcendence. The poem "Gannets" is a good example. You begin with a clear-eyed description of the gannets diving into the water, coming up with the fish in their mouths. But suddenly this life-and-death confrontation is transformed into something else: "...and I say: life is real,/ and pain is real,/ but death is an imposter." The poem concludes in some other realm entirely, declaring that the fish "slide down into a black fire/ for a mo ment,/ then rise from the water inseparable/ from the gannets' wings." What is it like when the work extends beyond mere knowing?
　　
　　Almost the best I can say is that I know when I have not done it. I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.
　　
　　I'd like to ask you about the choices, the large and small sacrifices you've made in order to have this work become a center in your life.
　　
　　It was not a choice of writing or not writing. It was a choice of loving my life or not loving my life. To keep writing was always a first priority. ... I worked probably 25 years by myself. ... Just writing and working, not trying to publish much. Not giving readings. A longer time than people really are willing to commit before they ... want to go public or be published. Also I was very careful never to take an interesting job. Really? Never?
　　
　　Not an interesting one. I took lots of jobs. But if you have an interesting job you get interested in it. I also began in those years to keep early hours. ... I usually get up at five. Believe me, if anybody has a job and starts at 9, there's no reason why they can't get up at 4:30 or five and write for a couple of hours, and give their employers their second-best effort of the day - which is what I did. ... I don't know how to measure the life I lived during those years. I was certainly never in want, a nd I was never wealthy. I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things. ... It's a commitment, but it's also an unstoppable urge toward that life of the imagination. I don't think I have been bored one day in my life, you know, or an hour.
　　
　　What led you to your bond with the natural world? I'm assuming it began when you were very young.
　　
　　Well, yes, I think it does or does not happen when one is young. ... I grew up in a small town in Ohio. ... It was pastoral, it was nice, it was an extended family. I don't know why I felt such affinity with the natural world except that it was available to me, that's the first thing. It was right there. And for whatever reasons, I felt those first important connections, those first experiences being made with the natural world rather than with the social world. I think the first way you do it, the first
　　
　　way you take meaning from the physicality of the world, from your environment, probably never leaves you. I think it sets a pattern, in a way.
　　
　　I was really intrigued by the poem "Picking Blueberries." It's one of those instances in your poetry where nature is clearly a mirror in which we can see ourselves from a fresh perspective. A deer stumbles across a young woman sleeping in a clearing and there is a moment of surprising intimacy. Before she finally retreats, you say: "the moment before she did that/ was so wide and so deep/ it has lasted to this day;/ I have only to think of her -/ the flower of her amazement ... to be absent again from th is world/ and alive, again, in another." The poem ends with that gentle question, "Beautiful girl,/ where are you?"
　　
　　The speaker is saying, where is the girl of 30 years ago. Where is the girl that I was? What has time done?
　　
　　It's a poem that tries to break down time, in a way. I almost never give the speaker of the poem a gender, so that the poem will fit as an experience to either a male or female reader. Many poets, especially women poets right now, are trying to write poems about their personal lives ... to share, as they say, with the reader. And I'm trying to write a poem which was not the experience of the reader but might have been. I use present tense a lot for the same reason. Every way that I can, I try to make it a felt experience. And so to use one gender or the other would make all readers of the other gender a little hesitant. But in this particular poem when I say "beautiful girl" it gives it away. But that is really all I meant. All young girls are beautiful.
　　
　　And especially when you're an old girl, (laughs), then you remember that you were a beautiful girl once.
　　
　　If it's clear which subjects you focus on, it's curious to me which subjects are wholly absent from your books. In the 100-odd poems here, there are precious few moments where you focus on personal history, family, or friends. I am surprised by the degree of distance you maintain in your writing. Is it simply a matter of privacy?
　　
　　Well, I think there might be a couple of reasons. I do feel that knowledge about the writer can be invasive.
　　
　　At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all. The women's movement - I did not join that either. I applaud it, and I guess I may even be part of it. I don't see it working very well in poetry. I see very good poets defeating their own poems with polemic. Not always, but too often.
　　
　　Your nature poetry somehow takes in the whole matter of our living and our dying. In the poem "Poppies," you say simply, "of course/ loss is the great lesson." It ends with the lines: "But also I say this: that light/ is an invitation/ to happiness,/ and that happiness,/ when it's done right,/ is a kind of holiness,/ palpable and redemptive." Is that the motive behind your forays into the woods and onto the page?
　　
　　Absolutely! Bull's-eye, to point to those lines! I think that appreciation is a very valuable thing to give to the world. And that's the kind of happiness I mean. And I can't go on with that because there's no language to talk about it. But that's probably very close to the center of whatever I feel spiritually.
　　
　　"The Swan" takes on this idea directly as well when it says: "Of course! the path to heaven/ doesn't lie down in flat miles./ It's in the imagination/ with which you perceive/ this world,/ and the gestures/ with which you honor it./ Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those/ white wings/ touch the shore?" Do you think in some sense that becomes the measure of our lives, how we do honor to what we discover in this world?
　　
　　Absolutely and totally，I do believe it. That's a poem in which every person, every reader can take his own measure and decide his response.



中文譯本：
詩人瑪麗?奧利弗：一種孤獨的行走

　　倪志娟 譯

　　訪談對象：瑪麗?奧利弗
　　訪談者：斯蒂芬?瑞迪勒
　　時間：1992年12月9日

　　當瑪麗?奧利弗在采訪和媒體座談中談起她的工作時——這是她非常不愿意做的事情——她的談話中有一種樸實、一種從容和果斷，令人想起上個世紀（19世紀，譯者注）。她創作的生活規律，如果放在上個世紀也許更自然一些。在那個時代，人們的客廳還沒有淹沒在意象與概念無盡的潮水之中，而每個個體都致力于培養內心世界的孤獨與好奇。

　　這并不是說奧利弗小姐的詩在風格、語言和意旨上完全不屬于當代。我的意思是，在我們的交談中，我的腦海中始終閃現著這個念頭：艾米麗?狄金森可能會把她當做最親近的鄰居。

　　年輕時，奧利弗小姐就沒有受到孤獨的折磨，也沒有感受到人們對詩人職業的普遍排斥。當她的詩集《美國始貌》出現在世人的視野中，并贏得1984年的普利策詩歌獎之后（此時她49歲，譯者注），她的平靜生活也沒有發生戲劇性的改變。今年（即1992年，譯者注）十一月，她的《新詩選》榮獲國家圖書獎。

　　她繼續過著簡單而內心充實的生活：獨處的時光，一個能夠散步、觀察的場所，以及將世界再現于文字的機會。和比她早一個時代的艾米麗一樣，瑪麗?奧利弗專注于明亮的經驗，盡情享受自然界中簡單而驚人的時刻，因為她相信，理智鑲嵌在美之中，神秘盤旋在閃閃發光的外表之下。

　　她的詩也是對自我本性的一種深入探究。但是在她的文本中，自我不是指我們對某個名字的簡單認同，而是一個更開闊、包容性更強的概念。在她的詩歌中，“瑪麗?奧利弗”如雨水一般流過她，承載著天鵝、塘鵝、松樹林、瀑布，以及世界隨時降臨于語言之中的神奇。
　　
　　斯蒂芬?瑞迪勒（以下簡稱斯）：讀你的《新詩選》時，這些詩歌的一致性給我留下了深刻印象。雖然它們的寫作跨越了近三十年，這本詩集卻如一本完整的集子，一次漫長的鋪陳。

　　瑪麗?奧利弗（以下簡稱瑪）：哦，這點真有趣。……這正是我的意圖，我希望它就是這個樣子。我認為我只是在寫一本書，始終在充實那一本書的內容。

　　斯：顯然，不是文學風格使這些詩統一起來。是什么樣的動力驅使你始終行駛在同一條平坦的大道上？

　　瑪：我想風格不過是一種工具，你運用它去表達你想表達的任何東西。……愛默生說詩是一種“信仰的自白”，我認為在作品中，或者在作品所呈現的東西中，必須有一種整體的構思。它的意圖是什么？它的主題是什么？它的推動力是什么？我總是在進行這種構想。究竟想表達什么呢？顯然，我希望表達的是一種快樂。

　　斯：你如何避免許多年輕詩人的困境呢？比如搖擺不定的模仿，文學時尚的左右？

　　瑪：我想有兩個原因。其一，我自己從沒加入過一個詩歌協會。……我在年代上稍稍早于這個時代。我很早就決定我要寫詩。但是我沒想過把它當做一種事業，更沒想過把它當做一種職業。……它是我生命中最激動人心、最強烈、最精彩的事情。我毫不質疑我所做的——我只是削尖我的鉛筆等待著！

　　斯：你從來沒有不安地問自己：我這樣做是對的嗎？

　　瑪：哦，我也從沒覺得我所做的是對的（笑）。這是語言的不可思議之處。它總是可以被寫得更好。我開始分辨什么有用，什么無用。我開始更多地依賴風格，而不是運氣、祈禱、或長時間地工作。風格，就是我所說的工具或方法。我幾乎與世隔絕地工作，我想這種隱秘性比群體性的協會對于詩人可能更好一些。我的圈子由那些偉大的詩人組成：我讀，讀，讀，我毫不羞愧、毫不畏懼地模仿。我永不滿足。我讀著那些句子，他們對詩歌的貢獻使我難以置信——抑揚頓挫的完美聲音結構，現在，我也和我的學生們談論這些！所有類似的技巧總是使我著迷。現在依然如此！

　　斯：但是你詩歌創造中的核心元素——離群索居，已經被大學的詩歌研究協會的模式完全排斥了。年輕作家們正在喪失這種根本性的生存體驗嗎？

　　瑪：這種生存方式對我很重要——我不知道它是否是根本性的。真的，它是我無意間找到的方式。同時我也散步。散步對我很有用。我走進一些地方，既不是故意的也不是無意的。本鎮上流傳著一個笑話：我以為自己在散步，結果人們發現我靜靜地站在某處。這不是一種有目的的行走；這種行走是過程的一部分。詩人唐納德?霍爾喜歡打盹。打盹的方式對他有用，幫助他打開了通向“預言”——他這樣稱呼它——的大門。也許其他的方式對其他人有用。你必須嘗試你能嘗試的每一件事，然后發現什么樣的方式對你有用。

　　斯：如果我們發現你呆呆地站著，這會是一首詩的開始嗎？接下去你就開始寫嗎？

　　瑪：是的，有時是這樣。我隨身攜帶著一個筆記本——我潦草地記錄……也許你會在一句話中開始找到感覺。但是，我曾說過：除非鉛筆在你的手中，否則天使不會站在你的肩膀上……事實往往是，只有結果多年的渴求、追尋，始終讓你自己向著它敞開，然后，你才能得到它。

　　斯：詩人威廉姆?斯塔福德這樣描述他清晨的習慣：坐在書桌前，準備好接受他的想象饋贈的任何事物。但是對你來說，你的興趣集中在 “禮物”收到之后所產生的延續作用。

　　瑪：是的，但我不相信我們能將愉悅從工作中分離出去。沒有比工作更好的事。工作就是玩耍，孩子們知道這一點。孩子們認真地玩耍，仿佛它是工作。但是人們長大之后，卻痛苦地工作。工作成為職責。我認為寫作是工作，也是玩耍——兩者緊密聯系在一起。

　　斯：你也帶著一種崇高的責任心從事這項工作。

　　瑪：是的，如果我選擇了去做它，它就是我的職責，應該盡可能寫得更好。我相信藝術非常重要。它是能拯救我們的事物之一。如果我們能依靠我們的想象行事，我們就不需完全依賴于經驗……這是我們突破自我生存限制的唯一途徑。你能超越時間、你自己的情感和狹隘的視角。

　　斯：在你的大多數詩歌中，仿佛經驗著自然而然的三階段。第一階段是看，對對象進行仔細審查。但是這種看激發了一種更深刻的興趣，一種被提升了的認識。突然，我們進入了那個時刻，成為一種在場。那么，什么是超越于看之上的看？

　　瑪：它就像一種頓悟。我看著某物，看著它，看著它。我看著我自己離它越來越近，為了更好地看它，仿佛透過它的物質形式看到了它的意義。然后，我從中提取出某種象征性的標記，這樣，它就超越了現實。

　　斯：是的，這正是我想說的第三階段：超越。《鯡鳥》一詩是一個很好的例子。詩的開頭，你描寫了鯡鳥如何跳進水中，嘴里叼著魚飛起來的視覺印象。突然，生死沖突轉變成其他的事物：“我認為：/生活是真實的，/痛苦是真實的，/而死亡不過是一個幌子，”這首詩結束于完全不同的問題，宣布魚“……滑進一束黑色的火焰，/從水中升起，與鯡鳥的翅膀/不可分離。”當作品超越了純粹的認知時，它會是什么樣子？

　　瑪：我充其量只能說，我明白我什么時候沒有完成它。我明白未完成的詩歌中的那種沉淪。我明白被完成了的詩歌的那種解脫。

　　斯：我想了解一下你所作的選擇。為了使寫作成為你生命的核心，你是否做出了或大或小的犧牲？

　　瑪：這種選擇不是選擇去寫或不寫，而是選擇去愛或者不愛我的生命。堅持寫作總是第一位的……我獨自寫了大約25年……只是寫，寫，從不試圖發表，也不拿出示人。比一般人將作品公之于眾或者愿意發表之前所忍耐的時間更長久。我也非常小心，絕不從事一項有趣的職業。
斯：真的？從不？

　　瑪：是的，從未從事過一種有趣的職業。我做過許多種工作。假如你得到了一種有趣的職業，你就會沉迷于其中。在那些年里，我起得很早，通常是5點起床。我想，如果一個人必須9點上班，他們沒有理由不能4點半或5點起床先寫上幾小時，然后在第二個工作時段為他們的雇主去干活——這就是我所做的——我不知道該如何評價我那些年的生活。我從不渴求財富，我也從不曾富裕過。我的觀點是，如果你愿意保持精神上的好奇，那么，你最好不要陷入過多的物質享受。這是一種擔當，但也是朝著想象生活的無限提升。在我的生命中，我不曾感受過哪怕一小時的厭倦。

　　斯：是什么東西使你與自然緊密聯系起來？我想，當你非常年輕的時候，你就已經這樣了。

瑪：是的，我想，當一個人年輕時，就已注定了一切……我生長在俄亥俄州的一個小鎮……它有著田園牧歌似的美，是一個大家庭。我最初所做的事情就是置身于自然之中，我也不知道為什么我對自然感到那么親切。那里的一切都很美好。我想無論是什么原因，我最初的重要聯系、最初的經驗總是與自然世界而非社會相關。我認為一個人最初做事的方式，從物質世界、周圍的環境中獲得意義的方式，也許一生都不會改變，它在某種意義上建立了一種模式。

　　斯：《采摘藍莓》一詩使我非常好奇。它描寫了你的詩歌所特有的那種時刻：自然是一面清晰的鏡子，通過它我們可以從一個全新的視角看見我們自己。一只鹿磕磕絆絆地經過一個沉睡的女人，如此清晰、如此驚異的親密時刻，在它最終消失之前，你寫道：“但是剛才那一刻，/如此遼闊，如此深沉，/一直持續到今天；/我只能想念她——/在她飛奔之前，/她花兒一般的驚訝，/她好奇的屏息，/以及她潮濕的渴望——/從這個世界消失了，/又在另一個世界復活，”這首詩結束于一個溫柔的問題：“美麗的女孩，/……/如今你在哪里？”。這個發言者在問，30年前的那個女孩在哪里？作為那個女孩的我在哪里？時間又做了些什么？

　　瑪：在某種意義上，這是一首試圖打破時間界限的詩。我并沒有賦予這首詩中的發言者一個性別，因此這首詩既適合女性讀者的經驗，也適合男性讀者的經驗。許多詩人，尤其是現在的女詩人，試圖書寫他們的私生活……按他們的說法，是在和讀者分享私人經驗。我卻想描寫讀者可能已經有過的體驗。因此，我使用了大量的現在時態。我用了每一種可能的方法，使它成為一種感覺經驗。我想無論使用哪一種性別，都會使其他性別的讀者感到猶疑。但是在這首詩中，當我寫到“美麗的女孩”時，它泄露了性別指向。不過這正是我的意圖所在，我認為所有的年輕女孩都很美。尤其是當你變成了一個“老女孩”時（笑），你會記得你會懷念你曾經的年輕美麗。

　　斯：你關注的那些主題都很確定。我很好奇，在你的作品中哪一種主題是完全缺席的。在這本詩集（指《新詩選》，譯者注）中的100首詩中，有幾首詩很鄭重地提及了個人經歷、家庭和朋友。你在書寫中與自我保持的距離使我很驚訝。它只是出于隱私的考慮嗎？

　　瑪：我想或許有多個原因。我的確認為，去了解作者可能是一種冒犯。在我的成長過程中，文學界受到所謂自白派詩人的主宰。我對那種自白毫無興趣。我認為特殊的個人立場對讀者根本沒有好處。至于婦女運動——我也沒有參加過。雖然我支持它，我自己可能是它的一部分。但我認為它在詩歌中起不到什么好作用。我看見許多優秀詩人在詩歌中失之于爭辯。雖然不會絕對如此，但是情況經常會如此。

　　斯：你的自然詩有時包含了我們全部的生和死。在《罌粟》一詩中你簡單地寫到：“當然/失敗是偉大的教訓。”它的結尾是：“但我也要說出這一點：光/是對快樂的/邀請，/而快樂，/當它恰到好處時，/是一種神圣/可以被感知，可以帶來救贖。”這是你既想步入森林同時又想在文字中去呈現的動機所在嗎？

　　瑪：絕對是！你的眼光很厲害，挑出了這幾句！我認為對世界的欣賞就是給這個世界的最好回饋。這就是我所謂的快樂。我無法展開這一點，因為找不到描述它的語言。但是那也許非常接近了我內心體驗的實質。

　　斯：《天鵝》一詩也直接表達了這個觀點，詩中寫道：“當然！通向天堂的路/并不鋪展在平坦的大地。/它存在于/你感知這個世界的/想象，/以及你向它致敬的/姿態中。/哦，當那白色的翅膀輕觸河岸時，/我將做些什么？/我將說些什么？”在某種意義上，你是否認為，向我們在這個世界中的發現表示敬意的方式，應該成為我們的生活方式？

　　瑪：的確如此。我認為是這樣的。世界是一首詩，在其中，我們每個人，每個讀者，能用他自己的方式，找到他自己的答案。

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