When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision 复生之悟：写作再认识

阿德里安娜·里奇 陈丽

Most， if not all， human lives are full of fantasy—passive day-dreaming which need not be acted on. But to write poetry or fiction， or even to think well， is not to fantasize， or to put fantasies on paper. For a poem to coalesce2， for a character or an action to take shape， there has to be an imaginative transformation of reality which is in no way passive. And a certain freedom of the mind is needed—freedom to press on， to enter the currents of your thought like a glider pilot， knowing that your motion can be sustained， that the buoyancy of your attention will not be suddenly snatched away. Moreover， if the imagination is to transcend and transform experience it has to question， to challenge， to conceive of alternatives， perhaps to the very life you are living at that moment. You have to be free to play around with the notion that day might be night， love might be hate; nothing can be too sacred for the imagination to turn into its opposite or to call experimentally by another name. For writing is re-naming. Now3， to be maternally with small children all day in the old way， to be with a man in the old way of marriage， requires a holding-back， a putting-aside of that imaginative activity， and seems to demand instead a kind of conservatism. I want to make it clear that I am not saying that in order to write well， or think well， it is necessary to become unavailable to others， or to become a devouring4 ego. This has been the myth of the masculine artist and thinker; and I do not accept it. But to be a female human being trying to fulfill traditional female functions in a traditional way is in direct conflict with the subversive function of the imagination. The word traditional is important here. There must be ways， and we will be finding out more and more about them， in which the energy of creation and the energy of relation can be united. But in those earlier years I always felt the conflict as a failure of love in myself. I had thought I was choosing a full life： the life available to most men， in which sexuality， work， and parenthood could coexist. But I felt， at 29， guilty toward the people closest to me， and guilty toward my own being.

I wanted， then， more than anything， the one thing of which there was never enough： time to think， time to write. Rapid revelations raised large questions—questions for which the masculine world of the academy around me seemed to have expert and fluent answers. But I needed desperately to think for myself—about pacifism5 and dissent and violence， about poetry and society and about my own relationship to all these things. For about ten years I was reading in fierce snatches， scribbling in notebooks， writing poetry in fragments; I was looking desperately for clues， because if there were no clues then I thought I might be insane. I wrote in a notebook about this time：

Paralyzed by the sense that there exists a mesh of relationships—e.g. between my anger at the children， my sensual life， pacifism， sex （I mean sex in its broadest significance， not merely sexual desire）—an interconnectedness which， if I could see it， make it valid， would give me back myself， make it possible to function lucidly and passionately. Yet I grope in and out among these dark webs.

I think I began at this point to feel that politics was not something “out there” but something “in here” and of the essence of my condition.

I was able to write， for the first time， directly about experiencing myself as a woman. The poem was jotted in fragments during children’s naps， brief hours in a library， or at 3 a.m. after rising with a wakeful child. I despaired of doing any continuous work at this time. Yet I began to feel that my fragments and scraps had a common consciousness and a common theme， one which I would have been very unwilling to put on paper at an earlier time because I had been taught that poetry should be “universal，” which meant， of course， non-female. Until then I had tried very much not to identify myself as a female poet.

大多数人，如果不是全部的话，都有幻想——那種消极的、不需要付诸实践的白日梦想。但是，去写诗或者写小说，抑或是清醒地思考，却算不上幻想，也不是将幻想写在纸上。要想让诗行延续成篇，让角色或者行动成型，就必须要对现实进行想象性改造，而这绝不消极。一定的思想自由是必需——能够向前推进的自由，像滑翔机飞行员一样冲入思想的气流中的自由，知道自己的动作能够持续，跳脱的想象力不会被突然地强制转移。而且，如果想象力要超越和改造生活的话，它必须要去质疑、去挑战、去构想或许能替代目前这一生存模式的可能性。你必须要能够自由地嬉戏思想——日能变幻为夜，爱亦会转化为恨;对于想象力而言，没有什么是神圣不可侵犯的，一切都可以转变为对立面或者被实验性地赋予新的名字。因为写作就是重新命名的过程。在传统的婚姻、家庭中，以传统方式相夫教子的女性就不得不压抑克制这种想象行为，反而需要一定的保守态度。我想说明，我的意思并不是说，一个人要想有好的写作、好的思想就必须自绝于其他人，或者自我高度膨胀，只顾自己。大家以前一直是这么误解男性艺术家和思想家的，我并不认同。但是，对于女性而言，她试图用传统方式来完成传统的女性职责的尝试，会与上述想象力的颠覆性运作形成直接冲突。“传统”一词在这里很重要。一定存在某些方式，而且我们将会发现越来越多的方式，来保证女性既有精力实现创造力，又有精力关注家庭。但是我在早些年间，总是感受到这种冲突，并将它归咎于我自己的爱心匮乏。我本以为我选择的是一个完满的人生：大多数的男人可以享受的人生，性欲、工作和父亲身份可以和谐共存。但是，我却在29岁的时候感到既愧对最亲近的人，也有负自己。

那时，我最最想要的唯一一样东西却永远都不能得到满足：思考的时间、写作的时间。快速的灵感闪现提出了很多的大问题——这些问题，我身边的高校里的男人们似乎已经有了专业、流畅的答案。但是，我却迫切地需要自己思考——思考和平主义、异见和暴力，思考诗歌和社会和我与所有这些事情的关系。在大约十年的时间里，我都是零零散散地阅读，匆匆忙忙地在笔记本上涂抹几笔，断断续续地写诗;我在迫切地寻找线索，因为要是没有线索，我想我可能就会疯掉。关于这一时期，我在笔记本上这么写道：

深陷这样的想法不能自拔：各种关系交错成网——例如，我对孩子们的怒火，我的俗世生活、和平主义、性（我是指最广泛意义上的性，不仅仅是性欲）等相互之间的关系——这种相互连接，假如我能够看到它，使之健全，它就能归还我的自我，使得自我能够清醒地、热情地工作。然而我却在这些黑暗的网络里摸索着进进出出，不得要领。

我觉得我就是在这个时候开始领悟到，政治并不是远在“天边”，而是近在“眼前”，与我的生存状态的实质密切相关。

生平头一次，我得以直接用我的女性体验为素材进行创作。在孩子们小睡的间隙，在图书馆的短短几个小时里，或者在凌晨三点，在陪睡不着的孩子起床之后，我匆忙地记下只言片语的诗行。那一阵子，我完全没办法创作任何连续性的作品。然而，我开始领悟到，我的那些只言片语、零散诗行拥有一个共同的意识，一个共同的主题，而这一主题我早些年间是绝对不会愿意诉诸笔端的，因为我以前接受的教育总是认为诗歌应该表达“普世”情感，这当然意味着女性情感不在此列。我一直极其费劲地拒绝承认自己的女性诗人身份，直到那个时刻。          □