Interview on Mary Oliver
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.
中文译本：
诗人玛丽•奥利弗：一种孤独的行走
倪志娟 译
访谈对象：玛丽•奥利弗
访谈者：斯蒂芬•瑞迪勒
时间：1992年12月9日
当玛丽•奥利弗在采访和媒体座谈中谈起她的工作时——这是她非常不愿意做的事情——她的谈话中有一种朴实、一种从容和果断，令人想起上个世纪（19世纪，译者注）。她创作的生活规律，如果放在上个世纪也许更自然一些。在那个时代，人们的客厅还没有淹没在意象与概念无尽的潮水之中，而每个个体都致力于培养内心世界的孤独与好奇。
这并不是说奥利弗小姐的诗在风格、语言和意旨上完全不属于当代。我的意思是，在我们的交谈中，我的脑海中始终闪现着这个念头：艾米丽•狄金森可能会把她当做最亲近的邻居。
年轻时，奥利弗小姐就没有受到孤独的折磨，也没有感受到人们对诗人职业的普遍排斥。当她的诗集《美国始貌》出现在世人的视野中，并赢得1984年的普利策诗歌奖之后（此时她49岁，译者注），她的平静生活也没有发生戏剧性的改变。今年（即1992年，译者注）十一月，她的《新诗选》荣获国家图书奖。
她继续过着简单而内心充实的生活：独处的时光，一个能够散步、观察的场所，以及将世界再现于文字的机会。和比她早一个时代的艾米丽一样，玛丽•奥利弗专注于明亮的经验，尽情享受自然界中简单而惊人的时刻，因为她相信，理智镶嵌在美之中，神秘盘旋在闪闪发光的外表之下。
她的诗也是对自我本性的一种深入探究。但是在她的文本中，自我不是指我们对某个名字的简单认同，而是一个更开阔、包容性更强的概念。在她的诗歌中，“玛丽•奥利弗”如雨水一般流过她，承载着天鹅、塘鹅、松树林、瀑布，以及世界随时降临于语言之中的神奇。
斯蒂芬•瑞迪勒（以下简称斯）：读你的《新诗选》时，这些诗歌的一致性给我留下了深刻印象。虽然它们的写作跨越了近三十年，这本诗集却如一本完整的集子，一次漫长的铺陈。
玛丽•奥利弗（以下简称玛）：哦，这点真有趣。……这正是我的意图，我希望它就是这个样子。我认为我只是在写一本书，始终在充实那一本书的内容。
斯：显然，不是文学风格使这些诗统一起来。是什么样的动力驱使你始终行驶在同一条平坦的大道上？
玛：我想风格不过是一种工具，你运用它去表达你想表达的任何东西。……爱默生说诗是一种“信仰的自白”，我认为在作品中，或者在作品所呈现的东西中，必须有一种整体的构思。它的意图是什么？它的主题是什么？它的推动力是什么？我总是在进行这种构想。究竟想表达什么呢？显然，我希望表达的是一种快乐。
斯：你如何避免许多年轻诗人的困境呢？比如摇摆不定的模仿，文学时尚的左右？
玛：我想有两个原因。其一，我自己从没加入过一个诗歌协会。……我在年代上稍稍早于这个时代。我很早就决定我要写诗。但是我没想过把它当做一种事业，更没想过把它当做一种职业。……它是我生命中最激动人心、最强烈、最精彩的事情。我毫不质疑我所做的——我只是削尖我的铅笔等待着！
斯：你从来没有不安地问自己：我这样做是对的吗？
玛：哦，我也从没觉得我所做的是对的（笑）。这是语言的不可思议之处。它总是可以被写得更好。我开始分辨什么有用，什么无用。我开始更多地依赖风格，而不是运气、祈祷、或长时间地工作。风格，就是我所说的工具或方法。我几乎与世隔绝地工作，我想这种隐秘性比群体性的协会对于诗人可能更好一些。我的圈子由那些伟大的诗人组成：我读，读，读，我毫不羞愧、毫不畏惧地模仿。我永不满足。我读着那些句子，他们对诗歌的贡献使我难以置信——抑扬顿挫的完美声音结构，现在，我也和我的学生们谈论这些！所有类似的技巧总是使我着迷。现在依然如此！
斯：但是你诗歌创造中的核心元素——离群索居，已经被大学的诗歌研究协会的模式完全排斥了。年轻作家们正在丧失这种根本性的生存体验吗？
玛：这种生存方式对我很重要——我不知道它是否是根本性的。真的，它是我无意间找到的方式。同时我也散步。散步对我很有用。我走进一些地方，既不是故意的也不是无意的。本镇上流传着一个笑话：我以为自己在散步，结果人们发现我静静地站在某处。这不是一种有目的的行走；这种行走是过程的一部分。诗人唐纳德•霍尔喜欢打盹。打盹的方式对他有用，帮助他打开了通向“预言”——他这样称呼它——的大门。也许其他的方式对其他人有用。你必须尝试你能尝试的每一件事，然后发现什么样的方式对你有用。
斯：如果我们发现你呆呆地站着，这会是一首诗的开始吗？接下去你就开始写吗？
玛：是的，有时是这样。我随身携带着一个笔记本——我潦草地记录……也许你会在一句话中开始找到感觉。但是，我曾说过：除非铅笔在你的手中，否则天使不会站在你的肩膀上……事实往往是，只有结果多年的渴求、追寻，始终让你自己向着它敞开，然后，你才能得到它。
斯：诗人威廉姆•斯塔福德这样描述他清晨的习惯：坐在书桌前，准备好接受他的想象馈赠的任何事物。但是对你来说，你的兴趣集中在 “礼物”收到之后所产生的延续作用。
玛：是的，但我不相信我们能将愉悦从工作中分离出去。没有比工作更好的事。工作就是玩耍，孩子们知道这一点。孩子们认真地玩耍，仿佛它是工作。但是人们长大之后，却痛苦地工作。工作成为职责。我认为写作是工作，也是玩耍——两者紧密联系在一起。
斯：你也带着一种崇高的责任心从事这项工作。
玛：是的，如果我选择了去做它，它就是我的职责，应该尽可能写得更好。我相信艺术非常重要。它是能拯救我们的事物之一。如果我们能依靠我们的想象行事，我们就不需完全依赖于经验……这是我们突破自我生存限制的唯一途径。你能超越时间、你自己的情感和狭隘的视角。
斯：在你的大多数诗歌中，仿佛经验着自然而然的三阶段。第一阶段是看，对对象进行仔细审查。但是这种看激发了一种更深刻的兴趣，一种被提升了的认识。突然，我们进入了那个时刻，成为一种在场。那么，什么是超越于看之上的看？
玛：它就像一种顿悟。我看着某物，看着它，看着它。我看着我自己离它越来越近，为了更好地看它，仿佛透过它的物质形式看到了它的意义。然后，我从中提取出某种象征性的标记，这样，它就超越了现实。
斯：是的，这正是我想说的第三阶段：超越。《鲱鸟》一诗是一个很好的例子。诗的开头，你描写了鲱鸟如何跳进水中，嘴里叼着鱼飞起来的视觉印象。突然，生死冲突转变成其他的事物：“我认为：\生活是真实的，\痛苦是真实的，\而死亡不过是一个幌子，”这首诗结束于完全不同的问题，宣布鱼“……滑进一束黑色的火焰，\从水中升起，与鲱鸟的翅膀\不可分离。”当作品超越了纯粹的认知时，它会是什么样子？
玛：我充其量只能说，我明白我什么时候没有完成它。我明白未完成的诗歌中的那种沉沦。我明白被完成了的诗歌的那种解脱。
斯：我想了解一下你所作的选择。为了使写作成为你生命的核心，你是否做出了或大或小的牺牲？
玛：这种选择不是选择去写或不写，而是选择去爱或者不爱我的生命。坚持写作总是第一位的……我独自写了大约25年……只是写，写，从不试图发表，也不拿出示人。比一般人将作品公之于众或者愿意发表之前所忍耐的时间更长久。我也非常小心，绝不从事一项有趣的职业。
斯：真的？从不？
玛：是的，从未从事过一种有趣的职业。我做过许多种工作。假如你得到了一种有趣的职业，你就会沉迷于其中。在那些年里，我起得很早，通常是5点起床。我想，如果一个人必须9点上班，他们没有理由不能4点半或5点起床先写上几小时，然后在第二个工作时段为他们的雇主去干活——这就是我所做的——我不知道该如何评价我那些年的生活。我从不渴求财富，我也从不曾富裕过。我的观点是，如果你愿意保持精神上的好奇，那么，你最好不要陷入过多的物质享受。这是一种担当，但也是朝着想象生活的无限提升。在我的生命中，我不曾感受过哪怕一小时的厌倦。
斯：是什么东西使你与自然紧密联系起来？我想，当你非常年轻的时候，你就已经这样了。
玛：是的，我想，当一个人年轻时，就已注定了一切……我生长在俄亥俄州的一个小镇……它有着田园牧歌似的美，是一个大家庭。我最初所做的事情就是置身于自然之中，我也不知道为什么我对自然感到那么亲切。那里的一切都很美好。我想无论是什么原因，我最初的重要联系、最初的经验总是与自然世界而非社会相关。我认为一个人最初做事的方式，从物质世界、周围的环境中获得意义的方式，也许一生都不会改变，它在某种意义上建立了一种模式。
斯：《采摘蓝莓》一诗使我非常好奇。它描写了你的诗歌所特有的那种时刻：自然是一面清晰的镜子，通过它我们可以从一个全新的视角看见我们自己。一只鹿磕磕绊绊地经过一个沉睡的女人，如此清晰、如此惊异的亲密时刻，在它最终消失之前，你写道：“但是刚才那一刻，\如此辽阔，如此深沉，\一直持续到今天；\我只能想念她——\在她飞奔之前，\她花儿一般的惊讶，\她好奇的屏息，\以及她潮湿的渴望——\从这个世界消失了，\又在另一个世界复活，”这首诗结束于一个温柔的问题：“美丽的女孩，\……\如今你在哪里？”。这个发言者在问，30年前的那个女孩在哪里？作为那个女孩的我在哪里？时间又做了些什么？
玛：在某种意义上，这是一首试图打破时间界限的诗。我并没有赋予这首诗中的发言者一个性别，因此这首诗既适合女性读者的经验，也适合男性读者的经验。许多诗人，尤其是现在的女诗人，试图书写他们的私生活……按他们的说法，是在和读者分享私人经验。我却想描写读者可能已经有过的体验。因此，我使用了大量的现在时态。我用了每一种可能的方法，使它成为一种感觉经验。我想无论使用哪一种性别，都会使其他性别的读者感到犹疑。但是在这首诗中，当我写到“美丽的女孩”时，它泄露了性别指向。不过这正是我的意图所在，我认为所有的年轻女孩都很美。尤其是当你变成了一个“老女孩”时（笑），你会记得你会怀念你曾经的年轻美丽。
斯：你关注的那些主题都很确定。我很好奇，在你的作品中哪一种主题是完全缺席的。在这本诗集（指《新诗选》，译者注）中的100首诗中，有几首诗很郑重地提及了个人经历、家庭和朋友。你在书写中与自我保持的距离使我很惊讶。它只是出于隐私的考虑吗？
玛：我想或许有多个原因。我的确认为，去了解作者可能是一种冒犯。在我的成长过程中，文学界受到所谓自白派诗人的主宰。我对那种自白毫无兴趣。我认为特殊的个人立场对读者根本没有好处。至于妇女运动——我也没有参加过。虽然我支持它，我自己可能是它的一部分。但我认为它在诗歌中起不到什么好作用。我看见许多优秀诗人在诗歌中失之于争辩。虽然不会绝对如此，但是情况经常会如此。
斯：你的自然诗有时包含了我们全部的生和死。在《罂粟》一诗中你简单地写到：“当然\失败是伟大的教训。”它的结尾是：“但我也要说出这一点：光\是对快乐的\邀请，\而快乐，\当它恰到好处时，\是一种神圣\可以被感知，可以带来救赎。”这是你既想步入森林同时又想在文字中去呈现的动机所在吗？
玛：绝对是！你的眼光很厉害，挑出了这几句！我认为对世界的欣赏就是给这个世界的最好回馈。这就是我所谓的快乐。我无法展开这一点，因为找不到描述它的语言。但是那也许非常接近了我内心体验的实质。
斯：《天鹅》一诗也直接表达了这个观点，诗中写道：“当然！通向天堂的路\并不铺展在平坦的大地。\它存在于\你感知这个世界的\想象，\以及你向它致敬的\姿态中。\哦，当那白色的翅膀轻触河岸时，\我将做些什么？\我将说些什么？”在某种意义上，你是否认为，向我们在这个世界中的发现表示敬意的方式，应该成为我们的生活方式？
玛：的确如此。我认为是这样的。世界是一首诗，在其中，我们每个人，每个读者，能用他自己的方式，找到他自己的答案。
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.
中文译本：
诗人玛丽•奥利弗：一种孤独的行走
倪志娟 译
访谈对象：玛丽•奥利弗
访谈者：斯蒂芬•瑞迪勒
时间：1992年12月9日
当玛丽•奥利弗在采访和媒体座谈中谈起她的工作时——这是她非常不愿意做的事情——她的谈话中有一种朴实、一种从容和果断，令人想起上个世纪（19世纪，译者注）。她创作的生活规律，如果放在上个世纪也许更自然一些。在那个时代，人们的客厅还没有淹没在意象与概念无尽的潮水之中，而每个个体都致力于培养内心世界的孤独与好奇。
这并不是说奥利弗小姐的诗在风格、语言和意旨上完全不属于当代。我的意思是，在我们的交谈中，我的脑海中始终闪现着这个念头：艾米丽•狄金森可能会把她当做最亲近的邻居。
年轻时，奥利弗小姐就没有受到孤独的折磨，也没有感受到人们对诗人职业的普遍排斥。当她的诗集《美国始貌》出现在世人的视野中，并赢得1984年的普利策诗歌奖之后（此时她49岁，译者注），她的平静生活也没有发生戏剧性的改变。今年（即1992年，译者注）十一月，她的《新诗选》荣获国家图书奖。
她继续过着简单而内心充实的生活：独处的时光，一个能够散步、观察的场所，以及将世界再现于文字的机会。和比她早一个时代的艾米丽一样，玛丽•奥利弗专注于明亮的经验，尽情享受自然界中简单而惊人的时刻，因为她相信，理智镶嵌在美之中，神秘盘旋在闪闪发光的外表之下。
她的诗也是对自我本性的一种深入探究。但是在她的文本中，自我不是指我们对某个名字的简单认同，而是一个更开阔、包容性更强的概念。在她的诗歌中，“玛丽•奥利弗”如雨水一般流过她，承载着天鹅、塘鹅、松树林、瀑布，以及世界随时降临于语言之中的神奇。
斯蒂芬•瑞迪勒（以下简称斯）：读你的《新诗选》时，这些诗歌的一致性给我留下了深刻印象。虽然它们的写作跨越了近三十年，这本诗集却如一本完整的集子，一次漫长的铺陈。
玛丽•奥利弗（以下简称玛）：哦，这点真有趣。……这正是我的意图，我希望它就是这个样子。我认为我只是在写一本书，始终在充实那一本书的内容。
斯：显然，不是文学风格使这些诗统一起来。是什么样的动力驱使你始终行驶在同一条平坦的大道上？
玛：我想风格不过是一种工具，你运用它去表达你想表达的任何东西。……爱默生说诗是一种“信仰的自白”，我认为在作品中，或者在作品所呈现的东西中，必须有一种整体的构思。它的意图是什么？它的主题是什么？它的推动力是什么？我总是在进行这种构想。究竟想表达什么呢？显然，我希望表达的是一种快乐。
斯：你如何避免许多年轻诗人的困境呢？比如摇摆不定的模仿，文学时尚的左右？
玛：我想有两个原因。其一，我自己从没加入过一个诗歌协会。……我在年代上稍稍早于这个时代。我很早就决定我要写诗。但是我没想过把它当做一种事业，更没想过把它当做一种职业。……它是我生命中最激动人心、最强烈、最精彩的事情。我毫不质疑我所做的——我只是削尖我的铅笔等待着！
斯：你从来没有不安地问自己：我这样做是对的吗？
玛：哦，我也从没觉得我所做的是对的（笑）。这是语言的不可思议之处。它总是可以被写得更好。我开始分辨什么有用，什么无用。我开始更多地依赖风格，而不是运气、祈祷、或长时间地工作。风格，就是我所说的工具或方法。我几乎与世隔绝地工作，我想这种隐秘性比群体性的协会对于诗人可能更好一些。我的圈子由那些伟大的诗人组成：我读，读，读，我毫不羞愧、毫不畏惧地模仿。我永不满足。我读着那些句子，他们对诗歌的贡献使我难以置信——抑扬顿挫的完美声音结构，现在，我也和我的学生们谈论这些！所有类似的技巧总是使我着迷。现在依然如此！
斯：但是你诗歌创造中的核心元素——离群索居，已经被大学的诗歌研究协会的模式完全排斥了。年轻作家们正在丧失这种根本性的生存体验吗？
玛：这种生存方式对我很重要——我不知道它是否是根本性的。真的，它是我无意间找到的方式。同时我也散步。散步对我很有用。我走进一些地方，既不是故意的也不是无意的。本镇上流传着一个笑话：我以为自己在散步，结果人们发现我静静地站在某处。这不是一种有目的的行走；这种行走是过程的一部分。诗人唐纳德•霍尔喜欢打盹。打盹的方式对他有用，帮助他打开了通向“预言”——他这样称呼它——的大门。也许其他的方式对其他人有用。你必须尝试你能尝试的每一件事，然后发现什么样的方式对你有用。
斯：如果我们发现你呆呆地站着，这会是一首诗的开始吗？接下去你就开始写吗？
玛：是的，有时是这样。我随身携带着一个笔记本——我潦草地记录……也许你会在一句话中开始找到感觉。但是，我曾说过：除非铅笔在你的手中，否则天使不会站在你的肩膀上……事实往往是，只有结果多年的渴求、追寻，始终让你自己向着它敞开，然后，你才能得到它。
斯：诗人威廉姆•斯塔福德这样描述他清晨的习惯：坐在书桌前，准备好接受他的想象馈赠的任何事物。但是对你来说，你的兴趣集中在 “礼物”收到之后所产生的延续作用。
玛：是的，但我不相信我们能将愉悦从工作中分离出去。没有比工作更好的事。工作就是玩耍，孩子们知道这一点。孩子们认真地玩耍，仿佛它是工作。但是人们长大之后，却痛苦地工作。工作成为职责。我认为写作是工作，也是玩耍——两者紧密联系在一起。
斯：你也带着一种崇高的责任心从事这项工作。
玛：是的，如果我选择了去做它，它就是我的职责，应该尽可能写得更好。我相信艺术非常重要。它是能拯救我们的事物之一。如果我们能依靠我们的想象行事，我们就不需完全依赖于经验……这是我们突破自我生存限制的唯一途径。你能超越时间、你自己的情感和狭隘的视角。
斯：在你的大多数诗歌中，仿佛经验着自然而然的三阶段。第一阶段是看，对对象进行仔细审查。但是这种看激发了一种更深刻的兴趣，一种被提升了的认识。突然，我们进入了那个时刻，成为一种在场。那么，什么是超越于看之上的看？
玛：它就像一种顿悟。我看着某物，看着它，看着它。我看着我自己离它越来越近，为了更好地看它，仿佛透过它的物质形式看到了它的意义。然后，我从中提取出某种象征性的标记，这样，它就超越了现实。
斯：是的，这正是我想说的第三阶段：超越。《鲱鸟》一诗是一个很好的例子。诗的开头，你描写了鲱鸟如何跳进水中，嘴里叼着鱼飞起来的视觉印象。突然，生死冲突转变成其他的事物：“我认为：\生活是真实的，\痛苦是真实的，\而死亡不过是一个幌子，”这首诗结束于完全不同的问题，宣布鱼“……滑进一束黑色的火焰，\从水中升起，与鲱鸟的翅膀\不可分离。”当作品超越了纯粹的认知时，它会是什么样子？
玛：我充其量只能说，我明白我什么时候没有完成它。我明白未完成的诗歌中的那种沉沦。我明白被完成了的诗歌的那种解脱。
斯：我想了解一下你所作的选择。为了使写作成为你生命的核心，你是否做出了或大或小的牺牲？
玛：这种选择不是选择去写或不写，而是选择去爱或者不爱我的生命。坚持写作总是第一位的……我独自写了大约25年……只是写，写，从不试图发表，也不拿出示人。比一般人将作品公之于众或者愿意发表之前所忍耐的时间更长久。我也非常小心，绝不从事一项有趣的职业。
斯：真的？从不？
玛：是的，从未从事过一种有趣的职业。我做过许多种工作。假如你得到了一种有趣的职业，你就会沉迷于其中。在那些年里，我起得很早，通常是5点起床。我想，如果一个人必须9点上班，他们没有理由不能4点半或5点起床先写上几小时，然后在第二个工作时段为他们的雇主去干活——这就是我所做的——我不知道该如何评价我那些年的生活。我从不渴求财富，我也从不曾富裕过。我的观点是，如果你愿意保持精神上的好奇，那么，你最好不要陷入过多的物质享受。这是一种担当，但也是朝着想象生活的无限提升。在我的生命中，我不曾感受过哪怕一小时的厌倦。
斯：是什么东西使你与自然紧密联系起来？我想，当你非常年轻的时候，你就已经这样了。
玛：是的，我想，当一个人年轻时，就已注定了一切……我生长在俄亥俄州的一个小镇……它有着田园牧歌似的美，是一个大家庭。我最初所做的事情就是置身于自然之中，我也不知道为什么我对自然感到那么亲切。那里的一切都很美好。我想无论是什么原因，我最初的重要联系、最初的经验总是与自然世界而非社会相关。我认为一个人最初做事的方式，从物质世界、周围的环境中获得意义的方式，也许一生都不会改变，它在某种意义上建立了一种模式。
斯：《采摘蓝莓》一诗使我非常好奇。它描写了你的诗歌所特有的那种时刻：自然是一面清晰的镜子，通过它我们可以从一个全新的视角看见我们自己。一只鹿磕磕绊绊地经过一个沉睡的女人，如此清晰、如此惊异的亲密时刻，在它最终消失之前，你写道：“但是刚才那一刻，\如此辽阔，如此深沉，\一直持续到今天；\我只能想念她——\在她飞奔之前，\她花儿一般的惊讶，\她好奇的屏息，\以及她潮湿的渴望——\从这个世界消失了，\又在另一个世界复活，”这首诗结束于一个温柔的问题：“美丽的女孩，\……\如今你在哪里？”。这个发言者在问，30年前的那个女孩在哪里？作为那个女孩的我在哪里？时间又做了些什么？
玛：在某种意义上，这是一首试图打破时间界限的诗。我并没有赋予这首诗中的发言者一个性别，因此这首诗既适合女性读者的经验，也适合男性读者的经验。许多诗人，尤其是现在的女诗人，试图书写他们的私生活……按他们的说法，是在和读者分享私人经验。我却想描写读者可能已经有过的体验。因此，我使用了大量的现在时态。我用了每一种可能的方法，使它成为一种感觉经验。我想无论使用哪一种性别，都会使其他性别的读者感到犹疑。但是在这首诗中，当我写到“美丽的女孩”时，它泄露了性别指向。不过这正是我的意图所在，我认为所有的年轻女孩都很美。尤其是当你变成了一个“老女孩”时（笑），你会记得你会怀念你曾经的年轻美丽。
斯：你关注的那些主题都很确定。我很好奇，在你的作品中哪一种主题是完全缺席的。在这本诗集（指《新诗选》，译者注）中的100首诗中，有几首诗很郑重地提及了个人经历、家庭和朋友。你在书写中与自我保持的距离使我很惊讶。它只是出于隐私的考虑吗？
玛：我想或许有多个原因。我的确认为，去了解作者可能是一种冒犯。在我的成长过程中，文学界受到所谓自白派诗人的主宰。我对那种自白毫无兴趣。我认为特殊的个人立场对读者根本没有好处。至于妇女运动——我也没有参加过。虽然我支持它，我自己可能是它的一部分。但我认为它在诗歌中起不到什么好作用。我看见许多优秀诗人在诗歌中失之于争辩。虽然不会绝对如此，但是情况经常会如此。
斯：你的自然诗有时包含了我们全部的生和死。在《罂粟》一诗中你简单地写到：“当然\失败是伟大的教训。”它的结尾是：“但我也要说出这一点：光\是对快乐的\邀请，\而快乐，\当它恰到好处时，\是一种神圣\可以被感知，可以带来救赎。”这是你既想步入森林同时又想在文字中去呈现的动机所在吗？
玛：绝对是！你的眼光很厉害，挑出了这几句！我认为对世界的欣赏就是给这个世界的最好回馈。这就是我所谓的快乐。我无法展开这一点，因为找不到描述它的语言。但是那也许非常接近了我内心体验的实质。
斯：《天鹅》一诗也直接表达了这个观点，诗中写道：“当然！通向天堂的路\并不铺展在平坦的大地。\它存在于\你感知这个世界的\想象，\以及你向它致敬的\姿态中。\哦，当那白色的翅膀轻触河岸时，\我将做些什么？\我将说些什么？”在某种意义上，你是否认为，向我们在这个世界中的发现表示敬意的方式，应该成为我们的生活方式？
玛：的确如此。我认为是这样的。世界是一首诗，在其中，我们每个人，每个读者，能用他自己的方式，找到他自己的答案。
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