Forrest GANDER (United States) is a writer and translator with degrees in geology and English literature. He taught at Harvard University and is now the AK Seaver Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts & Comparative Literature at Brown University. Gander’s book Core Samples from the World, a meditation on the ways we are revised and translated in encounters with the foreign, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His collection Be With won 2019 Pulitzer Prize. Gander has translated many books by writers from Latin America and Spain; co-translated books by Japanese poets Nomura Kiwao and Yoshimasu Gozo; and promoted English translations of books by Duo Duo, Ouyang Jianghe, Zhai Yongming and others.
Beckoned
At which point my grief-sounds ricocheted outside of language.
Something like a drifting swarm of bees.
At which point in the tetric silence that followed
I was swarmed by those bees and lost consciousness.
At which point there was no way out for me either.
At which point I carried on in a semi-coma, dreaming I was awake,
avoiding friends and puking, plucking stingers from my face and arms.
At which point her voice was pinned to a backdrop of vaporous color.
At which point the crane’s bustles flared.
At which point, coming to, I knew I’d pay the whole flag pull fare.
At which point the driver turned and said it doesn’t need to be
your fault for it to break you.
At which point without any lurching commencement,
he began to play a vulture-bone flute.
At which point I grew old and it was like ripping open the beehive with my hands again.
At which point I conceived a realm more real than life.
At which point there was at least some possibility.
Some possibility, in which I didn’t believe.
弗羅斯特．甘德（美國），作家與翻譯家，擁有地質學和英語文學學位，曾於哈佛大學任教，現為布朗大學A.K. Seaver文學藝術與比較文學榮休教授。他的著作《來自世界的核心樣本》入選普立茲獎的最終名單以及全美書評界大獎。他的詩集《同在》贏得2019年普立茲獎。甘德翻譯了大量拉丁美洲和西班牙作家的著作，合作翻譯過日本詩人野村喜和夫和吉増剛造的詩集，並致力於推廣多多、歐陽江河和翟永明等當代中國詩人的英譯本。
可能
到了哪個地步，我的悲聲才是從語言飛出的流彈。
猶如飄流的蜂群。
到了哪個地步，酸苦的沉默才隨後而至。
我被蜂群包圍，失去了意識。
到了哪個地步，連我也沒有出路？
到了哪個地步，我在半昏迷中度日，夢見自己醒來，
避開朋友，嘔吐，拔出臉上和手臂上的蜇針。
到了哪個地步，她的聲音才被針別在有如幻光的布幕上。
到了哪個地步，鶴的裙撐才反起。
到了哪個地步，正在醒轉，我才知道要付滿的士起步價。
到了哪個地步，司機才轉身對我說，它把你打倒了，
並不是你的錯。
到了哪個地步，不再有磕磕絆絆的畢業典禮，
他才開始吹奏鷹骨笛。
到了哪個地步，我老去猶如再度徒手掰開蜂巢。
到了哪個地步，我才感到幻境比生活更真實。
到了哪個地步，才至少有某種可能
某種我不信的可能。
（翻譯﹕宋子江）