百位国际大咖致百科诗派【1】：约翰·C·瑞安@澳洲望海崖

朋友们好！我叫约翰·查尔斯·瑞安。今天正值圣诞节，我在澳大利亚新南威尔士的望海崖（Point Lookout）向你们问好！这里位于澳大利亚东海岸，悉尼与布里斯班连线的中点。我的家在有2万人口的阿米代尔[1]附近，在澳大利亚新英格兰大学任教。
 
在这里请允许我向百科诗派创派12周年致以最衷心的祝贺！在当下的世界，诗歌的发展与各界支持密不可分。 百科诗派自2007年创立以来，对于诗歌与艺术创意所做出的贡献，喝彩！ 百科诗派同作家、画家、表演艺术家们携手，不仅让诗歌在受众上提升了一个维度，更具有改变人们生活形态的影响力和意义。 我也非常赞赏你们致力于诗歌国际传播。

今天我想向大家更详细地介绍这里——望海崖。 这里的山峰海拔约1500米。6-8月是澳大利亚的冬季，这一地区有时会下雪，但在整个澳大利亚降雪是罕见的。我所在这座山峰位于新英格兰国家公园，乌鸦从太平洋飞到这里的山峰上大概要飞50英里距离。这是澳大利亚最古老的国家公园之一。

从这里拐个弯，可以看到一片树林，这个树种叫做南极山毛榉 （Antarctic Beeches）。关于它们我曾写过不少论著。这一物种的存在可以追溯到1亿8千万年前冈瓦纳大陆的裂解。每一棵单株寿命都长达几个世纪。这里的景致就像J·R·R·托尔金笔下的魔幻中土，你很快就会看到。 

早在我来到澳大利亚的这片土地之前，就在著名诗人朱迪思•赖特（Judith Wright）诗中与望海崖有过神交，那是收录在她1946年出版的诗集《游移的形象》中的一首诗。朱迪思•赖特出生于1915年、2000年去世，是澳大利亚文学史上公认的代表诗人之一[2]，一生出版多达50多种图书，她本人还是一位环保斗士和社会活动家， 曾为澳大利亚土著的权益倾力奔走呼吁。我提到的这首她的著名诗作，揭示了19世纪殖民时期土著遭受的一系列残酷法案的压榨，它的开头两个段落是这样的：

黑人跳跃在新英格兰

向东的群峰宛如马刺从日光中折返
岬角与海湾间，夜晚递送氤氲的暗潮

与海面涌起的云船一同匀漾
拍打这陡峭而炫目的花岗岩山头
山脉的长脊被吞没而黯淡。孤寂的空气啊！

它在骨骼与头颅上空铺开冰冷之毯
嘶鸣着，从沉默寡言的岩石上跌入血肉
而后变得寂静，等待着那些苍蝇

这便是讯号，幽暗间的攀缘
时间正在耦合。夜的浮标毫无先兆
漂荡在等待我们龙骨的岩石上
没有召唤水手的钟声。 现在我们只能用夜晚
计算白昼，以极地划分热带，
用终结定义爱，用寂静衡量语词。
瞧那些海湾里，家的灯火如此微弱。

三十年代的时候，朱迪思•赖特和她的家人曾频繁地造访望海崖。她在一个叫做瓦拉蒙毕站的大型农场长大，离这里只有15分钟车程，成年后搬到了布里斯班，后来又迁居到堪培拉。她一定也曾经在这里挂满苔藓地衣的南极山毛榉森林里散过步。

今天，在望海崖，澳洲东海岸，我祝愿百科诗派新的一年取得更丰硕的成果。愿你们全力以赴的创作与传播再创新高！致以2019年最真诚的祝福，期待着，在不久的将来和你们见面。 

译者注：

[1] 阿米代尔（Armidale）位于新南威尔士州东北部的新英格兰地区（New England region）的北部高地（Northern Tablelands），平均海拔980米，距离新南威尔士州首府悉尼（Sydney）约470公里车程，距离昆士兰州首府布里斯班（Brisbane）约460公里车程。  阿米代尔历史悠久，美丽安静，典型的澳洲内陆乡村风情，是新英格兰大学（University of New England）所在地，此外阿米代尔也是著名的瀑布之路（Waterfall Way）的起点。

[2] 赖特是澳大利亚艺术委员会[含文学]领导机构成员之一，曾获得两所大学的文学博士称号，两次赢得格雷斯•列文诗奖，并荣获澳大利亚重要的文学奖——大英百科全书澳大利亚文学奖。1970年，她成为澳大利亚人文学院院士。

（殷晓媛 译）

附原文：

My name is John Charles Ryan. I’m here on Christmas Day at Point Lookout in New South Wales, Australia. This place is located about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane in eastern Australia. I now live in nearby Armidale, a town of about 20,000 people, where I work for the University of New England.  

I’d like to send my congratulations to the Encyclopedic Poetry School for your 12th Anniversary. I feel that it is really important to support poetry in today’s world. I applaud the Encyclopedic Poetry School for its dedication to poetry and the creative arts since 2007. Your work not only with writers but with artists and performers enables poetry to reach a broader audience and have more meaningful impacts on people’s lives. I also appreciate your interest in building international connections.

I’d like to tell you more about this place, Point Lookout. The peak is 1,500 meters or 5,000 feet above sea level. During the winter months of June, July and August, it sometimes snows here, which is rare in Australia. The mountain is located within the New England National Park, about 50 miles as the crow flies from the Pacific Ocean. This is one of the oldest national parks in Australia. 

Just around the corner from this viewpoint is a grove of ancient trees known as Antarctic Beeches. I have written extensively about these trees. The species has been in existence since the break-up of the Gondwanan supercontinent 180 million years ago. Individual trees can live for several hundred years. It is a very magical and Tolkienesque environment, as you will see in a moment.

Before I ever visited this part of Australia, I knew about Point Lookout from a poem by Judith Wright included in her 1946 collection The Moving Image. Judith Wright lived from 1915 to 2000, and is regarded as one of the leading poets in Australian history. She published more than 50 books and was also an environmentalist and social activist who campaigned for the rights of Aboriginal Australian people. Her famous poem, which is about acts of cruelty committed against Aboriginal people during the colonial era in the 1800s, begins with the following stanzas:

The eastward spurs tip backward from the sun.

Nights runs an obscure tide round cape and bay

and beats with boats of cloud up from the sea

against this sheer and limelit granite head.

Swallow the spine of range; be dark. O lonely air.

Make a cold quilt  across the bone and skull

that screamed falling in flesh from the lipped cliff

and then were silent, waiting for the flies.

Here is the symbol, and climbing dark

a time for synthesis. Night buoys no warning

over the rocks that wait our keels; no bells

sound for the mariners. Now must we measure

our days by nights, our tropics by their poles,

love by its end and all our speech by silence.

See in the gulfs, how small the light of home.

Judith Wright visited Point Lookout frequently with her family in the 1930s. She grew up on a very large farm called Wallamumbi Station, which is only a 15 minute drive from here, and as an adult moved to Brisbane and, then, to Canberra. She would have strolled through these mossy forests of Antarctic Beech.

From Point Lookout and eastern Australia, I wish Encyclopedic Poetry School members a fruitful new year. May you succeed and be happy in all your writing and publishing endeavours. All the very best for 2019. I look forward to meeting you in person sometime.   

摄于望海崖附近

约翰·查尔斯·瑞安（John Charles Ryan）

出生于美国， 2008年迁居西澳大利亚，目前任新英格兰大学文学院博士后研究员（2017–2020），其博士后研究项目为 “植物学想象力：诗歌作为激励生态审美与社区福利的手段”，该项目对作为激励人类对自然界理解及重新定义人与植物关系手段的诗学实践进行研究，将创意、评论及以社区为单位的措施相结合，聚焦于新南威尔士北部台地的植物多样性，旨在通过诗歌创作、工作坊和合作项目的开展，培养对澳洲植被的情感投入。其成果包括众多独树一帜的学术及创意文学作品，以艺术支持可持续发展、非遗保护及澳洲原生态社区建设。

约翰·查尔斯·瑞安博士身兼诗人、理论家、民族志研究者等多重身份，除担任教职之外，还兼任西澳大学英国语言及文学学院荣誉研究员。2011至2015年期间，为位于珀斯的埃迪斯科文大学艺术与传播学院担任学期讲师及博士后研究员。他的教学研究活动自在穿行于在环境与数字人文间，曾著、合著、主编、合编十余部学术著作，包括《数码艺术：新媒体简介》（合著，2014）及《植物的语言：科学、哲学与文学》（合著，2017）等。

延伸阅读：

作者著作《The Language of Plants》封面

 作者著作《Two With Nature》封面