Summary

In this article, I utilise theoretical concepts from Timothy Morton’s The Ecological Thought (2010) to examine selected poems by Juliana Spahr from her poetry collection Well Then There Now (2011). Many of the poems in this collection, especially “Things of each possible relation hashing against one another” (WT 53-67) and “Gentle now, don’t add to heartache” (WT 122-133), deal with the inter-connectivity of all human and non-human beings. Spahr’s idea of inter-connectedness relates philosophically to Morton’s definition of “the ecological thought” as a “practice and a process of becoming fully aware of how human beings are connected with other beings – animal, vegetable, or mineral” (2010: 107/2088). It would thus be illuminating to use Morton’s concepts as set out in his ontology about the interconnectivity of all things, in particular, “the mesh” and “the strange stranger”, to read Spahr’s poems in Well Then There Now. “The mesh” imagines inter-connectedness and asks, “who or what is interconnected with what or with whom” as an attempt to illustrate that “nothing exist all by itself” (2010: 108/2088), whereas “the strange stranger” relates to the interconnectivity of all things because it comes forth from the interconnectedness that characterises everything. Morton (2010: 246/1088) writes: “The strange stranger isn’t just a blank at the end of a long list of life forms we know (aardvarks, beetles, chameleons … the strange stranger). The strange stranger lives within (and without) each and every being.” The interconnectedness of all things is an interesting characteristic of Spahr’s poems, and Morton’s theoretical concepts provide the necessary tools to emphasise these different relationships extensively.

概括

在本文中，我将利用蒂莫西·莫顿（Timothy Morton）的《生态思想》（The Ecology Thought，2010）中的理论概念来研究朱莉安娜·斯帕尔（Julianna Spahr）的诗歌集《好然后在那里》（Well Then There Now）（2011）。该合集中的许多诗歌，特别是“彼此之间散列的各种可能的事物”（WT 53-67）和“现在轻柔，别加添心痛”（WT 122-133），涉及所有人类和非人类的连通性。斯帕尔的相互联系概念在哲学上与莫顿对“生态思想”的定义相关，后者是“一种实践和充分认识到人类如何与动物，植物或矿物等其他人类联系起来的过程”（2010：107 / 2088）。因此，使用莫顿在其关于一切事物的相互关系的本体论中提出的概念（尤其是“网格”和“陌生的陌生人”）来解读斯帕尔的《井中有现在》的诗，将很有启发性。。“网格”想象着相互联系，并问“谁或什么与什么或与谁相互联系”，以试图说明“什么都不存在，本身”（2010：108/2088），而“陌生的陌生人”与万物的互连有关，因为它来自表征一切的互连。莫顿（Morton，2010：246/1088）写道：“在我们知道的一长串生命形式（土豚，甲虫，变色龙……这是陌生的陌生人）的尽头，陌生的陌生人不仅仅是空白。这个陌生的陌生人生活在每个生命之内（和没有）。” 万物的相互联系是Spahr诗歌的一个有趣特征，Morton的理论概念提供了必要的工具，可以广泛地强调这些不同的关系。