内容来源：分享美国 地址链接：http://go.usa.gov/3HXTe 　

美国桂冠诗人（U.S. Poet Laureate）胡安·费利佩·埃雷拉(Juan Felipe Herrera)在媒体对他的早期采访中，讲述了一位老师如何使他走上诗歌创作生涯。但他从未能够向这位老师表示感谢。

现在，这个故事有了一个新结局。就在他与连线美国（ShareAmerica）谈话之前的几分钟，他的三年级老师，今年94岁的廖莉娅·桑普森(Lelya Sampson)与他通了话。埃雷拉说： “几十年来我一直在寻找她。”

埃雷拉是来自墨西哥的流动农场工人的儿子，小时候几乎不会说英语，上世纪50年代在加州学校读书时，几乎总是保持沉默，直到后来有一天桑普森老师让他用英文唱歌，而且是独自在全班同学面前唱。

老师告诉埃雷拉，他的嗓音很美。她的称赞激励了他；他将这理解为不仅仅是对他歌唱能力的肯定。他说，她“为我指出了当作家和表演者的道路。”

为移民及全人类服务的活动家

埃雷拉通过一个为低收入和少数族裔学生提供帮助的项目，进入了加州大学洛杉矶分校(University of California at Los Angeles)。在大学期间，他的声音转向带有政治关注。那时正值60年代民权运动以后，移民群体开始强调对自身文化历史的自豪感，他成为倡导移民权益的活动家。

埃雷拉的许多诗歌和故事源于他身为墨西哥裔美国人的背景。他说：“对我而言，政治意味着完整表现你的人生景观：你的经历，你的语言，你看世界的方式。它也意味着对依然存在的各种障碍发出声音。”

《诗歌杂志》(Poetry Magazine)的编辑唐·谢尔(Don Share)说：“如果读胡安的诗，你会发现，那正是你每天在全国大部分地方听到的声音，也就是英语和另一种语言的结合——对他来说是西班牙语。”

谢尔举“Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way”（“让我们生气蓬勃地相聚”）为例，展现这首诗如何自由地在西班牙语和英语之间转换。

“它结合了你可能会从农场工人那里听到的话语，并把它变成诗歌。他带来了对凝聚国家的所有不同语言和文化的肯定。”

录音： 

A poet gives voice to all languages

During many earlier interviews with the media, U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera told the story of a teacher who shaped his poetry career. But he had never been able to thank her for the effect she had on his life.

His story now has a new ending. Minutes before he spoke to ShareAmerica, his third-grade teacher, Lelya Sampson, now 94, called him. “I’d been hunting for her for decades,” Herrera said.

The son of migrant farm workers from Mexico, Herrera spoke very little English as a boy, and in fact, remained nearly silent at his California school in the 1950s, until Mrs. Sampson asked him to sing a song in English — alone in front of the class.

Afterward, the teacher told Herrera he had a beautiful voice. Her praise inspired him; he understood it to refer to more than just his singing ability. She “charted the road for me as a writer and as a performer,” he said.

An activist for immigrants, and all humankind

Herrera’s voice turned political when he attended the University of California at Los Angeles through a program for low-income and minority students. His college experience coincided with the aftermath of the civil rights era of the 1960s, at a time when immigrant communities began emphasizing pride in their cultural histories, and he became an activist for immigrants.

Many of his poems and stories draw on his Mexican-American background. “To me,” Herrera said, “political means fully painting your human landscape: your stories, your language, the way you see the world. It also means speaking about the various barriers that still exist.”

“If you look at Juan’s poetry,” said Don Share, editor of Poetry Magazine, “what you’ll find is just what you’ll hear every day in most parts of the nation, which is a combination of English and another language — in his case Spanish.”

Share gave the example of “Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way,” which floats freely between Spanish and English.

“It combines the kind of talk you might hear among agricultural workers and turns it into poetry. He brings an acknowledgement of all the different kinds of languages and cultures that are tied together into one nation.”

Audio: 
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