At the Lonesome Bijou

Is the sonnet making a comeback?

十四行诗卷土重来吗？

I’d like to think so, and I’m not the only one.

我也这么认为，而且我不是唯一一个这样认为的人。

Ken Gordon’s online publication The Sonneteer is making a strong case for the venerable form.

肯·戈登 (Ken Gordon) 的在线出版物《十四行诗》(The Sonneteer) 为这一古老的形式提供了强有力的论证。

And this month’s Next Line, Please prompt—to write a sonnet beginning with a line adapted from Shakespeare—testifies to the attractions of the 14-line poem as well as to the ability of our NLP all-stars.

本月的下一行，请提示——以莎士比亚的一行改编写一首十四行诗——证明了这首 14 行诗的吸引力以及我们 NLP 全明星的能力。

The three lines I tossed out as possible openers are these:

我提出的三行可能的开场白是：

Choosing option #1, Courtney Thrash submitted “Sunset on my Fortieth Birthday,” which she began to compose on that significant day:

选择选项#1，考特尼·思拉什提交了“我四十岁生日的日落”，她在那个重要的日子开始创作：

Take all my loves, from words to jewels to suns And place them in the hollow crescent moon And let her hold the weight of all that’s done For love.

带走我所有的爱，从文字到珠宝到太阳，把它们放在空心的新月里，让她承受为爱所做的一切的重量。

For love grows in her waxing womb.

因为爱在她的子宫里生长。

Then take the looking glass, that sea of sin, And hold it to her light-reflecting face And let her feel the weight of lines too thin To see.

然后拿起镜子，那罪恶之海， 把它举到她反光的脸上， 让她感受那些太细而看不见的线条的重量。

For aged eyes her light erase.

对于衰老的眼睛，她的光擦除。

Take all I am, from word to womb to rune And thresh it, watch it float from winnowed tine.

带走我的一切，从文字到子宫再到符文，将其打谷，看着它从扬尘的尖齿中漂浮。

My mother’s mother bends—a sickled moon.

我母亲的母亲弯曲了——镰刀般的月亮。

In truth, the spirit dies ere does the spine.

事实上，精神先于脊椎死亡。

Away, dark soulless night and sky, away!

走开，黑暗无情的夜晚和天空，走开！

This gentle moon grows surer by the day.

这温柔的月亮一天比一天坚定。

This wonderful effort struck Emily as “both Shakespearean AND Keatsian!”—a major compliment.

这一出色的努力让艾米丽感到“既是莎士比亚式的又是济慈式的！”——这是一种重大的赞美。

She “really liked the repetition of line 1, almost pantoum-like” and the “image of the moon, the sea, the looking-glass, the female shapes—all beautifully crafted.” I happily concur.

她“真的很喜欢第一行的重复，几乎像哑剧一样”和“月亮、大海、镜子、女性形状的图像——所有这些都制作精美。”我很高兴地同意。

The third stanza of Courtney’s poem exemplifies her skill.

考特尼诗的第三节体现了她的技巧。

Consider the adjective “sickled” for “moon”; the alliterative linking of “word,” “womb,” “watch,” and “winnowed”; and the quatrain’s last line, which Michael C.

考虑“月亮”的形容词“sickled”； “word”、“womb”、“watch”和“winnowed”的头韵连接；以及这首四行诗的最后一行，Michael C.

Rush praised by saying that it “breaks me.” I add my appreciation for the repetition of “For love” in line four.

拉什称赞说这“让我心碎”。我对第四行重复的“For love”表示赞赏。

Emily chose the same opening line for her “Play Therapy” and manifested a similar adroitness in the rhyme pattern she followed:

艾米丽为她的“游戏疗法”选择了相同的开场白，并在她遵循的韵律模式中表现出了类似的熟练：

Take all I love, from dolls to jewels to guns (a gun in the doll-house toy box, the jewel a sticky-backed dazzle fixed to a thumb) and, from senseless chaos, dare help unspool meaning for the children left without a chair to hold them up, the ones holding burning heat they can’t pass on.

带上我所爱的一切，从玩偶到珠宝再到枪支（玩具屋玩具盒里的一把枪，宝石是固定在拇指上的粘性眩光），从毫无意义的混乱中，敢于帮助那些没有椅子支撑的孩子们解开意义，那些带着无法传递的灼热热量的孩子们。

I, too, doubt No manual exists for folding death into stars and cranes.

我也怀疑是否存在将死亡折叠成星星和鹤的手册。

When the river we all grew up loving rose in the night to topple the known world, Jenga tower come to life, we had no words, just a kite: hot-glued popsicle sticks, origami paper, a doll hanging on by a string.

当我们从小到大所热爱的河流在夜色中升起，推翻了已知的世界，叠叠乐塔苏醒过来时，我们无话可说，只有一只风筝：热粘的冰棍棒、折纸、用绳子挂着的娃娃。

Of this recollection of summer camp (I’m guessing), Courtney Thrash cited , as her favorite part , “No manual exists for folding death into stars and cranes,” while Michael C.

在回忆夏令营时（我猜），Courtney Thrash 引用了她最喜欢的部分：“不存在将死亡折叠成星星和起重机的手册”，而 Michael C.

Rush observed that Emily’s lines “consistently break­ on a word that seems benign or containable,” then follow with a line that undercuts the benignity.

拉什观察到，艾米丽的台词“总是在看似良性或可控制的词上打断”，然后又出现削弱良性的台词。

Beth Dufford did something splendid with the second prompt option.

贝丝·达福德 (Beth Dufford) 在第二个提示选项中做了出色的事情。

Like Courtney, she rhymed her poem to good effect:

和考特尼一样，她对这首诗押韵，效果很好：

When I wink, my eyes see things as they are and when they’re closed, asleep at night, they see things as they aren’t—aloft in a car, about to fall, thinking this is how we die, but no, now I find myself in France with my sixth-grade teacher Mr. Steep in pukka beads and platform shoes, two-tone pants, feathered hair, an image projected from a far fold of my neocortex, stored, sorted, and now playing, one night only, at the Lonesome Bijou where I’ve endured— and starred in—every show.

当我眨眼的时候，我的眼睛看到的是事物本来的样子，而当它们闭上，晚上睡着了，它们看到的事物并不是它们的样子——高高在上的汽车里，即将坠落，以为我们就是这样死的，但不，现在我发现自己和我的六年级老师史蒂普先生一起在法国，他穿着布卡珠子和松糕鞋，双色裤子，羽毛头发，从我的新皮质的远端投射出的图像，被存储、分类，现在只在孤独的地方玩一个晚上。 Bijou 是我忍受并主演每一场演出的地方。

My eyes slowly wake to see things just as they are: no time but now, nowhere but here.

我的眼睛慢慢醒来，看到了事物的本来面目：除了现在，没有时间，除了这里，别无他处。

A simple rhyme.

一个简单的押韵。

Of this tribute to the imagination as a means to supplant reality, Michal C.

对于将想象力作为取代现实的手段的致敬，Michal C.

Rush, Palevanilla, Anna Ojascastro Guzon, and I all applauded the lines that include the one-night-only showing “at the Lonesome Bijou” and the anagrammatic play of “stored” and “sorted,” strategically separated by a line break.

Rush、Palevanilla、Anna Ojascatro Guzon 和我都对其中的台词表示赞赏，其中包括仅放映一晚的“at the Lonesome Bijou”，以及“stored”和“sorted”的字谜游戏，策略性地用换行符将其分开。

Emily admired the imagery and asked whether Beth had thought of a title for the piece.

艾米丽很欣赏这些图像，并询问贝丝是否想好这幅作品的标题。

I nominate “Lonesome Bijou.”

我提名“孤独的珠宝”。

Option #3 elicited “Sami Takes a Seat” from Palevanilla:

选项 #3 引出了 Palevanilla 的“Sami Takes a Seat”：

To me, dear friend, you never can be Old.

对我来说，亲爱的朋友，你永远不会老。

At best a kind deceit designed to please.

充其量是一种旨在取悦他人的欺骗。

At worst, a self-deceiving lie.

最坏的情况下，是一个自欺欺人的谎言。

That first night under cool fluorescent light Harry tells me that he doesn’t see age.

在冷荧光灯下的第一个晚上，哈利告诉我他看不到年龄。

He is very serious.

他很严肃。

But I know

但我知道

he would never say I don’t see color to a person of color.

他永远不会说我对有色人种来说看不到颜色。

“Then you don’t see me,” I say.

“那你就看不见我了，”我说。

He is very still,

他非常安静，

his face a puzzle solving itself.

他的脸上有一个谜题正在自行解决。

Later, we will see each other in our poems—fragile, ageless.

稍后，我们会在诗中见到彼此——脆弱，永恒。

But for now

但现在

we are both relieved when another student takes the seat between us.

当另一名学生坐在我们中间时，我们都松了口气。

The full poem wins us over as a corrective to the poetical idealization of its first sentence—much as Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun”) acts as a corrective to the hyperbolic praises bestowed on his beloveds in other sonnets.

整首诗赢得了我们的青睐，因为它纠正了第一句话的诗意理想化——就像莎士比亚的十四行诗第 130 首（“我情妇的眼睛一点也不像太阳”）纠正了其他十四行诗中对他所爱的人的夸张赞美。

The analogy of age to color is original and convincing, as is the dying fall with which the poem ends.

年龄与颜色的类比是原创且令人信服的，这首诗的结尾也是垂死的秋天。

Anna Ojascastro Guzon ’s “Seeing Things” is striking from start to finish:

Anna Ojascatro Guzon 的《Seeing Things》从头到尾都令人惊叹：

When I wink I see things as they are not as they could be or as they once were.

当我眨眼时，我看到的事物并不是它们本来应该的样子，也不是它们曾经的样子。

In those moments, I unlearn the science that assigns names to things we observe.

在那些时刻，我忘记了为我们观察到的事物命名的科学。

Frog, cloud, fly, orange, raisin, grain of sand.

青蛙，云，苍蝇，橙子，葡萄干，沙粒。

When I see things as they are, nothing is clear.

当我看到事物本来的样子时，没有什么是清楚的。

Pathologies have no source.

病理没有来源。

Wars have no start and assessments are dispersed from airplanes flying low.

战争尚未开始，评估也从低空飞行的飞机上分散开来。

The paper leaflets float, haphazard and graceful, catching light and turning in winds, like confetti or fortune slips.

纸质传单随意而优雅地漂浮着，在光线中捕捉并在风中旋转，就像五彩纸屑或幸运纸条一样。

Answers scatter and end up between sewer grates or leaves of grass on traveled roads or in human hands

答案分散并最终落在下水道格栅之间或行进道路上的草叶之间或人类手中

I particularly admire the “unlearning” of science, the allusion to Whitman in the penultimate line, and the simile that enlivens this passage: “The paper leaflets / float, haphazard and graceful, catching light / and turning in winds, like confetti or / fortune slips.”

我特别欣赏科学的“忘却”，倒数第二行对惠特曼的暗示，以及使这段文字生动活泼的明喻：“纸质传单/漂浮，随意而优雅，捕捉光线/并在风中旋转，就像五彩纸屑或/幸运纸条。”

Finally, here is Amanda J.

最后，这是阿曼达·J.

Bradley ’s “Winking Black”:

布拉德利的《眨眼黑》：

When I wink, I see things as they are: we sheep, sport in this most dangerous game, fodder and clod, matter formed to tame or blame us in sweet nothings snared from thin air, devil’s playground without care, self-anointed lords beyond shame for the delible, written in sacred pain.

当我眨眼的时候，我看到了事物的本来面目：我们羊群，在这场最危险的游戏中嬉戏，饲料和土块，为驯服或责备我们而形成的物质，以从稀薄的空气中捕捉到的甜蜜的东西，无忧无虑的魔鬼游乐场，自封的领主，为可毁灭的人而感到羞耻，以神圣的痛苦写下。

Where to house the rage bourn through millennia?

千年来的愤怒该去哪里安置？

And oh, the ghosting, the ghosting, the ghosts.

哦，鬼魂，鬼魂，鬼魂。

Surehanded where they should refrain, patriarchal ethic reinscribing.

在他们应该避免的地方，重男轻女的道德重新定义。

Each wound, each stab each bullet, each bomb, each rape—ritual or no, arbitrary and evil, copper teeth of demons hosting frayed threads of belief in the Good, certainly mad.

每一次伤口，每一次刺伤，每一颗子弹，每一次炸弹，每一次强奸——无论是否有仪式，任意和邪恶，恶魔的铜牙承载着磨损的善信，当然是疯狂的。

I fiddle through the whimpers casting Harrods plaid.

我拨弄着哈罗德格子图案的呜咽声。

The title works beautifully, and the poet conveys her sense of “sacred pain” by asking, “Where to house the rage bourn through millennia?

这个标题写得很漂亮，诗人通过提问来表达她的“神圣的痛苦”感：“千年来的愤怒在哪里？

I wish I had space enough to quote more of the sonnets that came in.

我希望有足够的空间来引用更多的十四行诗。

My compliments to all.

我向所有人致意。

For next month, let us lie.

下个月，让我们撒谎吧。

All poetry involves lying—by definition, a metaphor identifies an object or sensation as something it is not.

所有诗歌都涉及谎言——根据定义，隐喻将一个物体或感觉识别为它不是的东西。

And we lie not only when we exaggerate or employ “poetic license,” but also when we resort to fiction or invention.

我们不仅在夸大或使用“诗意许可”时撒谎，而且在诉诸虚构或发明时也撒谎。

When we write or say ,“I will love you forever,” we may be speaking in good faith, but we are uttering a falsehood.

当我们写下或说“我会永远爱你”时，我们可能是在真诚地说，但我们在说谎。

Sometimes we lie to ourselves, and self-deception is a fertile subject for exploration.

有时我们会对自己撒谎，而自欺是一个值得探索的话题。

While we are familiar with white lies, we might consider lies of other colors.

虽然我们熟悉善意的谎言，但我们可能会考虑其他颜色的谎言。

I suggest that we write poems inspired by this subject.

我建议我们受这个主题的启发写诗。

You might devote a poem to one big lie—or to an inventory of lies.

你可能会写一首诗来讲述一个弥天大谎——或者一系列谎言。

For inspiration, I highly recommend reading “The Decay of Lying” by Oscar Wilde and Sir Walter Raleigh’s great poem “The Lie.”

为了获得灵感，我强烈推荐阅读奥斯卡·王尔德的《谎言的衰败》和沃尔特·罗利爵士的伟大诗篇《谎言》。

Maximum: 15 lines.

最多：15 行。

Deadline: three weeks from the time this post goes up.

截止日期：自这篇文章发布之日起三周。