2012年紐約布魯克林的黑人女詩人特雷西•K•史密斯（Tracy K. Smith）憑借第三部詩集《火星生活》（Life on Mars）摘得普利策詩歌獎桂冠，這是她收到的一份特殊的40歲生日禮物。普利策獎委員會形容這本詩集“大膽、巧妙，將讀者帶上宇宙，並讓他們真實感受到了快樂與苦痛。”她的詩，風格純熟，語言玄妙。《火星生活》將我們帶到很遠的地方，同時也正接近我們的家園，正如詩中寫道：“我們是他物的一部分，而不僅僅是一名過客。”史密斯首部出版的作品為《身體的問題》（The Body’s Question）（2003），在2007年時完成了第二部詩集《魔力》。
獲獎詩歌選譯--
My God, It’s Full of Stars 天啊，它遍布星星
1
We like to think of it as parallel to what we know,
We like to think of it as parallel to what we know,
Only bigger. One man against the authorities.
Or one man against a city of zombies. One man
我們喜歡把它聯想成我們熟知的世界，
隻會更大。一人對抗權威，
或一人對抗僵屍的城市。一人
Who is not, in fact, a man, sent to understand
The caravan of men now chasing him like red ants
Let loose down the pants of America. Man on the run
事實上他不是人，派去理解，
一行人群起而攻之，像紅蟻
爬滿美洲大地的褲腳。人在逃跑。
Man with a ship to catch, a payload to drop,
This message going out to all of space. . . . Though
Maybe it’s more like life below the sea: silent,
這人要趕上船，要丟下炸彈，
這信息傳遍整個太空……即使
它也許更像海底的生活：沉寂，
Buoyant, bizarrely benign. Relics
Of an outmoded design. Some like to imagine
A cosmic mother watching through a spray of stars,
浮動著，異常柔和。設計過時的
聖物。有人把它想成
宇宙之母透過噴霧狀的星子在觀看
Mouthing yes, yes as we toddle toward the light,
Biting her lip if we teeter at some ledge. Longing
To sweep us to her breast, she hopes for the best
念念有詞，當我們朝著光明蹣跚前行，
咬緊她的嘴唇，如果我們在某個邊緣搖搖欲墜。渴望
她將我們一攬入懷，她充滿希望。
While the father storms through adjacent rooms
Ranting with the force of Kingdom Come,
Not caring anymore what might snap us in its jaw.
而父親風暴般穿過相鄰的房間，
以天國降臨的力量咆哮，
並不關心什麽會把我們吃進嘴裏。
Sometimes, what I see is a library in a rural community.
All the tall shelves in the big open room. And the pencils
In a cup at Circulation, gnawed on by the entire population.
有時，我看到的是一所鄉村圖書館，
敞開的閱覽室裏高大的書架。以及鉛筆
在公用的杯子裏，被所有人啃咬過。
The books have lived here all along, belonging
For weeks at a time to one or another in the brief sequence
Of family names, speaking (at night mostly) to a face,
書籍始終在這裏，一次
在不同姓的人手裏呆上數周
（大部分時間在夜晚）對一張臉，
A pair of eyes. The most remarkable lies.
和一雙眼訴說。最出色的謊言。）
2.
Charlton Heston is waiting to be let in. He asked once politely.
A second time with force from the diaphragm. The third time,
He did it like Moses: arms raised high, face an apocryphal white.
查爾頓·赫斯頓等著進去。他客氣地問了一次。
第二次從隔膜發力。第三次，
他像摩西：高舉手臂，麵對一個可疑的白色。
Shirt crisp, suit trim, he stoops a little coming in,
Then grows tall. He scans the room. He stands until I gesture,
Then he sits. Birds commence their evening chatter. Someone fires
新洗的襯衫，整潔的外套，他彎下腰進來，
然後挺直。他掃了一眼房間。他站著，直到我示意，
才坐下。鳥開始夜晚的啁啾。有人在下麵
Charcoals out below. He’ll take a whiskey if I have it. Water if I don’t.
I ask him to start from the beginning, but he goes only halfway back.
That was the future once, he says. Before the world went upside down.
點燃木炭。假如我有他會喝威士忌。沒有就喝水。
我要他從頭講起，但他從當中開始。
那時也曾是未來，他說。在世界顛倒之前。
Hero, survivor, God’s right hand man, I know he sees the blank
Surface of the moon where I see a language built from brick and bone.
He sits straight in his seat, takes a long, slow high-thespian breath,
英雄，幸存者，神的左右手，我知道他看到月球空白的
表麵，那裏我看到用磚骨堆砌的語言。
他端坐在自己的位置，長長緩緩吸了一口高悲劇的氣，
Then lets it go. For all I know, I was the last true man on this earth. And:
May I smoke? The voices outside soften. Planes jet past heading off or back.
Someone cries that she does not want to go to bed. Footsteps overhead.
然後呼出。就我所知，我是這個地球上最後一個真正的男人。而且：
我可以抽煙嗎？外麵的聲音軟化。噴射飛機飛去或飛回。
有人叫喊她不想去睡覺。頭頂有腳步聲。
A fountain in the neighbor’s yard babbles to itself, and the night air
Lifts the sound indoors. It was another time, he says, picking up again.
We were pioneers. Will you fight to stay alive here, riding the earth
鄰居院子裏的噴泉對自己喋喋不休，夜晚的空氣
升高室內的聲音。那是另一次，他說，重新拾起話題。
我們是先鋒。你會不會為了生存而戰，騎著地球
Toward God-knows-where? I think of Atlantis buried under ice, gone
One day from sight, the shore from which it rose now glacial and stark.
Our eyes adjust to the dark.
向著神不知鬼不覺的地方？想想埋在冰下的亞特蘭蒂斯，有一天
從視線消失，從那兒升起的海岸如今冰冷荒涼。
我們的眼睛適應了黑暗。
3.
Perhaps the great error is believing we’re alone,
That the others have come and gone—a momentary blip—
When all along, space might be choc-full of traffic,
Bursting at the seams with energy we neither feel
Nor see, flush against us, living, dying, deciding,
Setting solid feet down on planets everywhere,
Bowing to the great stars that command, pitching stones
At whatever are their moons. They live wondering
If they are the only ones, knowing only the wish to know,
And the great black distance they—we—flicker in.
也許最大的錯誤就是相信我們是孤單的，
其他人來了又走——曇花一現——
也可能從來太天空就交通擁擠，
以我們並未察覺和見到的能量爆裂
衝向我們，活著，死去，決定，
雙腳牢固地立在星球上，到處都是，
向有控製力的偉大星球鞠躬，
朝它們的衛星投石。他們活著好奇
是否他們是唯一知道想知道，
巨大的黑色距離他們——我們——閃爍
Maybe the dead know, their eyes widening at last,
Seeing the high beams of a million galaxies flick on
At twilight. Hearing the engines flare, the horns
Not letting up, the frenzy of being. I want to be
One notch below bedlam, like a radio without a dial.
Wide open, so everything floods in at once.
And sealed tight, so nothing escapes. Not even time,
Which should curl in on itself and loop around like smoke.
So that I might be sitting now beside my father
As he raises a lit match to the bowl of his pipe
For the first time in the winter of 1959.
也許死者知道，他們終於睜大了眼睛，
看到百萬個星係的高光閃耀
在黃昏。聽著燃煙的發動機，喇叭
沒響，處在狂熱之中。我想成為
喧鬧下的一個缺口，就像一個沒有按鈕的收音機。
敞開，所有一切一起湧來。
緊緊密封，因此無法逃脫。甚至時間也不行，
它本該卷曲在自身裏，像煙霧環繞。
仿佛我現在就坐在我父親身邊
當他拿起火柴點燃煙鬥
那是第一次，於1959年的冬天。
4.
In those last scenes of Kubrick’s 2001
When Dave is whisked into the center of space,
Which unfurls in an aurora of orgasmic light
Before opening wide, like a jungle orchid
For a love-struck bee, then goes liquid,
Paint-in-water, and then gauze wafting out and off,
Before, finally, the night tide, luminescent
And vague, swirls in, and on and on. . . .
在庫布裏克2001的最後場景裏
當大伍被送到太空中心，
它於高潮光暈中展開
在敞開之前，像叢林蘭花
麵對墜入愛河的蜜蜂，然後變成液體，
水中油彩，然後薄紗般飄出飄遠，
在最後發光模糊的夜潮
不停漩入之前。。
In those last scenes, as he floats
Above Jupiter’s vast canyons and seas,
Over the lava strewn plains and mountains
Packed in ice, that whole time, he doesn’t blink.
In his little ship, blind to what he rides, whisked
Across the wide-screen of unparcelled time,
Who knows what blazes through his mind?
Is it still his life he moves through, or does
That end at the end of what he can name?
在那些最後場景，當他漂流
在木星巨大的峽穀和海洋上，
越過散落著熔岩的平原和山巒
覆蓋著冰，整個過程中，他不眨一眼。
在他的小飛船裏，他看不清乘著什麽，飛越
綿延寬廣的時間長河，
誰知道什麽在他腦海中燃燒？
他仍在穿越自己的生命，或者
在他可以命名的那一端結束？
On set, it’s shot after shot till Kubrick is happy,
Then the costumes go back on their racks
And the great gleaming set goes black.
現場拍了又拍，直到庫布裏克感到滿意，
然後，服飾放回到他們的機架上
巨大的閃光體變暗。
5.
When my father worked on the Hubble Telescope, he said
They operated like surgeons: scrubbed and sheathed
In papery green, the room a clean cold, a bright white.
當我父親在哈勃太空望遠鏡上工作，他說：
他們像外科醫生一樣操作，擦洗然後套在
紙質的綠色裏，房間幹淨寒冷，潔白。
He’d read Larry Niven at home, and drink scotch on the rocks,
His eyes exhausted and pink. These were the Reagan years,
When we lived with our finger on The Button and struggled
他在家裏讀拉裏·尼文，在岩石上喝蘇格蘭威士忌，
他的眼睛疲乏並布滿血絲。這是裏根時代，
當我們把手指放在“按鈕”上苟且偷生，並試圖
To view our enemies as children. My father spent whole seasons
Bowing before the oracle-eye, hungry for what it would find.
His face lit-up whenever anyone asked, and his arms would rise
把我們的敵人當作兒童。我的父親花了整個季節
向天眼鞠躬，渴望發現能找到的。
不論誰問，他的臉就發亮，他的手臂會升起
As if he were weightless, perfectly at ease in the never-ending
Night of space. On the ground, we tied postcards to balloons
For peace. Prince Charles married Lady Di. Rock Hudson died.
好像他沒有重量，於永無止境的夜太空裏
泰然自若。在地麵，我們把明信片綁在氣球上，
為了和平。查爾斯王子和戴安娜女士結婚。洛克·哈德森去世了。
We learned new words for things. The decade changed.
我們學會了用新單詞描繪事物。這十年發生了變化。
The first few pictures came back blurred, and I felt ashamed
For all the cheerful engineers, my father and his tribe. The second time,
The optics jibed. We saw to the edge of all there is—
最初送回的幾張照片模糊不清，我感到慚愧
為所有歡快的工程師，我的父親和他的部落。第二次，
光學儀器轉移了。我們目之所及的邊緣
So brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.
如此殘酷，充滿活力，它似乎反過來理解我們。
這篇譯作得到京燕等朋友的修改指正，特此致謝！
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