Accents by Denice Frohman

《口音》———丹妮斯·佛羅曼

來源視頻

I'm Denice Frohman,

and this is "Accents."

My mom holds her accent like a shotgun,

with two good hands.

her tongue, all brass knuckle

slipping in between her lips

her hips, are all laughter and wind clap.

我叫丹妮斯·佛羅曼，

這首詩題為《口音》。

我媽媽說話帶口音，

就好像用雙手緊握著獵槍。

她的舌頭像 戴上了指節(jié)銅環(huán)，

從她的雙唇間溜進；

她的臀部充滿了笑聲和風聲。

She speaks a sanchocho ?of spanish and english,

pushing up and against one another,

in rapid fire

there is no telling my mama to be "quiet,"

my mama don't know "quiet."

她說話西班牙語和英語夾雜著，

就像用快火燴制一鍋大雜燴，

各種食材相互推推攘攘， 你擠我碰。

沒法叫我媽媽“靜下來”，

因為我媽媽不明白 ?“quiet” 是什么意思

Her voice is one size better fit all

and you best not tell her to hush,

she waited too many years for her ?voice to arrive

to be told it needed house keeping.

她的音量使得她十分健談，

你最好別叫她靜下來，

她一貫如此說話，

這許多年之后，她才得知她的 音量需要 “內務”管理。

English sits in her mouth remixed

so "strawberry" becomes "eh-strawbeddy"

and "cookie" becomes "eh-cookie"

and kitchen, key chain, and chicken ?all sound the same.

英語在她的嘴中加以混音，

于是 “strawberry (草莓)” 變成了 “eh-strawbeddy”,

“cookie (餅干)”變成了 “eh-cookie”，

而 “kitchen (廚房)”、“key chain (鑰匙扣)” 和 “chicken (雞)” 聽起來都 一樣。

my mama doesn't say "yes"

she says, "ah ha"

and suddenly the sky in her mouth ?becomes a Hector Lavoe song.

her tongue can't lay itself ?down flat enough

for the English language,

it got too much hip

too much bone

too much conga

too much cuatro

to two step

我媽媽不說 “yes (是的)”，

她說 “ah ha”，

突然，她嘴里的天空變成了 赫克托·拉沃的歌，

她的舌頭無法攤平

說英語。

這舌頭有太大臀部，

太多骨頭，

太多康加舞，

太多四弦吉他，

無法跳兩步舞,

got too many piano keys

in between her teeth,

it got too much clave

too much hand clap

got too much salsa to sit still

it be an anxious child wanting to

make Play-Doh out of concrete

English be too neat for

her kind of wonderful.

在她的牙齒間，

太多鋼琴鍵，

太多打擊節(jié)奏，

太多拍手聲，

太多薩爾薩舞，讓人坐不住，

它像個焦慮的孩子，

想要把混凝土 變成培樂多彩泥，

英語太整潔了，

不適合表達她 那種美好的方式，

her words spill in conversation

between women whose hands are all they got

sometimes our hands are all we got

and accents that remind us ?that we are still

bomba, still plena

她在倆女人間談話，滔滔不絕，

雙手是她們所有的，

有時，我們的雙手 是我們所有的。

而口音提醒我們

仍是炸彈，仍是集會。

you say "wepa"

and a stranger becomes your hermano,

you say "dale"

and a crowd becomes a family reunion.

my mother's tongue is a telegram ?from her mother

decorated with the coqui's of el campo

so even when her lips can barely

stretch themselves around english,

her accent is a stubborn compass

always pointing her

towards home.

你說“哇，太好了”，

一個陌生人就成了你的兄弟，

你說“加油”，

一群人就成了家人團聚，

我媽媽的發(fā)音就像她媽媽，

用“呱呱”類似聲音裝飾的電報

因此即使她的嘴唇

很難吞吐說出英語，

但她的口音就如同永恒的指南針

總是引領著她

回鄉(xiāng)。