Transformational Poetry by Margaret Gibson

The transformation of personal grief into environmental grief was a recurring message in an all-school poetry reading by Margaret Gibson on Feb.27.

 

吉布森教授 荣誉退职的 at the University of Connecticut and a nationally and internationally renowned poet, 2月参观学校. 26-28 as part of the Westminster Poet Series, which began in 1999. 每学年, the school welcomes a poet to campus for two-day visits, which includes a reading and class visits. Gibson lives in Connecticut and is currently finishing a three-year appointment as the Poet Laureate for the State of Connecticut during which time she chose as her focus “Poetry and the Environment during Climate Crisis.”

 

在她读书的时候, Gibson stressed the interconnectedness of all things: death and life, 人性与自然世界. 她朗诵了自己最新三部曲中的诗, reflections and observations that chronicle the diagnosis of her husband, 作家大卫·麦凯恩, with Alzheimer's disease; the progression of the illness; and his passing and how it also reflects our tenuous and symbiotic connection to the natural world.

 

鉴于全球气候变化, she urged students to have the courage to go out and make changes, 采取行动. 她最近工作的重点, 她说, “is to write more about the interdependence of the inner and the outer world.”

 

It is illustrated in her poem “It Doesn’t Take Much,” a reflection about finding an injured frog on her doorstep. In the final verses, she reveals how the frog bounced back and was returned to its environs. She ponders whether it was dropped by a hawk, or whether it is a harbinger? 

 

还是说这只死青蛙是个大使

来自湿地世界?

我小心翼翼地举起它，青蛙一动不动

四肢柔软，没有尸僵

还没有,

我把它放在一边，放在一个纸袋里，

取出，取出:取出以后埋葬-

我有一只嗅觉灵敏的狗.

但当我来拿它的时候，纸袋

是沙沙声，是跳跃声

活着!

             于是我抱着青蛙

一直到池塘的边缘

and settle it into the shade of the cattails.

当死亡降临在你的门石上，

你想想看.

When death turns out to be life, injured life,

你高兴.

                     然后回到你自己的身边.