在评委提交的正式报告的最后，特别提到我的诗歌《幽居之歌》(Song of the Quiet Life)，这首由18首短诗组成的长诗写作于1992年秋天，“是用一种赞美和歌唱的方式写成的，它描绘了诗人精神世界的地狱之旅，也是他对独身生活的一次总结和告别……”（我的德文翻译、德国诗人托比亚斯·布加特曾这样评价）。

    这首诗在罗伯特·贝洛尔德和我合作下译成英文后，全文刊登在《新硬币》杂志上（中文原文曾发表在海外的《今天》、昆明的《大家》以及诗生活网站），同名诗集（由这首长诗和44首短诗组成）已在2006年5月由南非远南出版社出版，南非诗人、诗评家加利·库姆米斯基为此书专门撰写了一篇书评。

    评委用“奇异”、“美妙”这两个词来形容《幽居之歌》，并称如果这个诗歌奖对非南非籍诗人开放的话，这组诗将是难以击败的。以下Robert Berold转来的评委报告原文（本人向来对评奖之类的缺乏兴趣，但南非人的评奖程序却很有意思，由一个诗人评委说了算，并给出理由，贴在这里与博友分享）： 

               南非最古老的诗刊《新硬币》

the judge's report

There are some beautiful and fascinating poems in the volumes of New Coin in 2007 and judging the best three was not an exact science. I tried asking friends, poets and academics, and got no where because everyone chose different poems. This is testimony to the quality of the poetry, something for everyone, but was useless for me. So, I venture subjectively, with apologies to beautiful poems unmentioned.

Like last year’s judge Joan Metelerkamp, I will tell you my final five: Robert Berold’s “on the road”, Allan Kolski Horwitz’s “Red Ants”, Dawn Garisch’s “Blood Delta”, Gail Dendy’s “The Cancer Toad”, and Vulani Bila’s “crimes of the vararas”.

I give the first prize to the deceptively simple “on the road”. The images are washed clean and lead us to a meditation of energy and joy. When was the last time a poem made you happy? The form now created is easy to copy but not the fine contradictory emotions of the last stanzas. Berold leads us to joy and praise, not through sentiment but through image and sensory being.

The second prize I give to “Blood Delta”, which again without being overly poetic, pierced feeling precisely, this time the sense of internal bleeding caused by the passive observation of murder. The poem spoke to me sitting in South African suburbia, knowing of suffering and not knowing.

Thirdly, the drums of “Red Ants”. This poem has urgency and the sound of unstoppable impersonal eviction. This is political poetry with art and music, written in the tradition of our oral literature and story telling with the poet chanting from the heart of our turmoil.

Gail Dendy’s “The Cancer Toad” is complex and moving, with grand deft gestures towards the darkness. Vila Bonai’s “crimes of the vararas” is brave, vivid and poetry that we need to hear. Yet, in the end the three above are the ones I will remember best.

I would like to add that the poems of Tianxin Cai, translated by the poet and Robert Berold, are strange and exquisite. If this prize was open to non-South Africans, they would have been hard to beat.

Congratulations to New Coin for publishing such great poetry and to the poets for finding truths and clear words.

罗伯特的中国回忆录