评论
打印
编者按：
但是直到多年以后我才渐渐地明白那些痛苦的“第一首诗”的经历的真正意义。当我成为一名专业作家以后，我才越来越明白自己曾多么幸运。我有一位说“巴蒂，这当真是你写的吗？我觉得写得真棒”的母亲，还有一位摇头否定说“我认为写得很糟”使我流泪的父亲。一个作家——实际上我们生活中的每个人——都需要爱的力量作为一切创作的动力，但是仅仅有爱的力量是不完整的，甚至是误导的，平衡的爱应该是告诫对方“观察、倾听、总结、提高。”
My First Poem
When I was eight , I wrote my first poem.
My mother read the little poem and poured out her praise. Why, this poem was nothing short of genius!
This evening when my father came in, my mother began to tell him, "Ben, Buddy has written his first poem! And it's beautiful,absolutely amazing--"
"If you don't mind, I'd like to decide for myself," Father said.
I kept my face lowered to my plate as he read that poem. It was only ten lines. But it seemed to take hours.
"I think it's lousy," he said.
I coundn't look up. My eyes were getting wet.
"Ben, sometimes I don't understand you," my mother was saying."This is just a little boy. These are the first lines of poetry he's ever written. He needs encouragement."
"I don't know why." My father held his ground. "isn't there enough lousy poetry in the world already? No law says Buddy has to become a poet."
A few years later I took A second look at the first poem; it was a pretty lousy poem. After a while, I worked up the courage to show him something new, a short story. My father thought it was overwrittenbut not hopeless. I was learning to rewrite. And my mother was learning that she could criticize me without crushing me. You might say we were all learning.
But it wasn't until years later that the true meaning of that painful "first poem" experience dawned on me. As I became a professional writer, it becane clearer and clearer to me how fortunate I had a mother who said,"Buddy,did you really write this? I think it's wonderful!" and a father who shook his head no and drove me to tears with "I think it's lousy." A writer--in fact every one of us in life--needs that loving force frome which all creation flows. Yet along that force is incomplete, even misleading; balance of the force cautions,"Watch. Listen. Review. Improve."
Sometimes you find these opposing force in associate friends, loved ones. But finally you must balance these opposites within yourself.
Those conflicting but complementary voice of my childhood echo down through the years--wonderful...lousy...wonderful...lousy--like two opposing winds battering me. I try to navigate my craft so as not capsize before either.
