伊丽莎白·亚历山大教授访谈录(英文)

Interview with Prof.Elizabeth Alexander

伊丽莎白.亚历山大是美国耶鲁大学美国非裔研究系主任和教授,著有《霍屯督的维纳斯》、《美国高度》、《向往光辉》等 7 部诗集和《黑色内部》、《可能与权力》等 2 部论文集,是 2006 年普利策诗歌奖三名最终候选者之一,曾获国家艺术基金、古根海姆基金资助和杰克逊诗歌奖,两次荣获手推车诗歌奖。2010 年 11 月,罗良功教授在耶鲁大学美国非裔研究系主任办公室对亚历山大教授进行了访谈。本次访谈以亚历山大在奥巴马总统就职仪式上的诗歌朗诵开篇,讨论了她持久的历史意识及其在诗歌创作中以家族历史写种族与国家历史的历史书写策略,进而探讨了她的诗歌中关于种族、记忆、生命和死亡等重要主题及其诗歌创作中的女性主义(而非妇女主义)艺术视角,后者体现了丽塔.朵芙和格温朵琳.布鲁克斯等黑人女性主义声音的影响。在诗歌艺术方面,她认为自己是一个形式主义者,认为艺术是政治的,在个人表达和种族表达中赋予艺术形式以政治意蕴。谈及美国非裔文学发展史,亚历山大教授认为兰斯顿.休斯对于包括她本人在内的美国非裔诗人和作家产生了深远影响,并认为芝加哥黑人文艺复兴取得了重要成就,堪为20世纪美国黑人社会的第四次文艺复兴,应该受到学界的重视。亚历山大教授在访谈中还对娜塔莎.特蕾瑟薇、凯文.杨、特伦斯.海耶斯等同时代重要诗人进行了点评。

Elizabeth Alexander is poet,professor and chair of the Department of African AmericanStudies,Yale University.Author of 7 books of poems such as The Venus Hottentot（1990）,Amer-ican Sublime（2005）,and Crave Radiance（2010） as well as 2 collections of essays The BlackInterior（2004） and Power and Possibility（2007）,she was one of the three finalists for the 2006Pulitzer Prize and recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship,Guggenheim Fel-lowship,Jackson Prize for Poetry,two Pushcart Prizes,and so on.In November 2010,ProfessorLuo Lianggong,editor of Foreign Literature Studies,Central China Normal University,interviewedProfessor Alexander at her Yale office.Beginning with her poem-reading at President Obama＇sinauguration,this interview deals with her constant sense of history and her history writing bycombining familial history with the history of her race and nation.Based on this,this interviewfurther approaches the major themes of her poetry such as race,memory,and life and death,andher feminist—instead of womanist for her—perspective in her artistic practice,which,accordingto her,witnesses the influences of some feminist voices like Rita Dove and Gwendolyn Brooks.When talking about poetic artistry,she insists that she,as a formalist,views art as political andtries to imbue the artistic form in her personal and racial expression with political meanings.As tothe development of African American literature,she believes that Langston Hughes has exerted asignificant and lasting influence on many African American poets and writers,including herself,and that the Chicago Black Renaissance should draw much scholarly attention due to its achieve-ments.She also offers some comments upon her contemporary poets such as Natasha Trethewey,Kevin Young and Terrance Hayes.