Excerpt：瑪吉‧尼爾森的《藍》

凌晨的手指把鋼琴敲響而我
仍在勺你眼睛裡的藍——
我動脈裡的里爾克，棲居在脈動著的秋天
孩子般依戀微涼中的溫
提著燈籠照映玻璃
……
——劉曉頤，〈我動脈裡的里爾克〉(收錄於《靈魂藍：在我愛過你的廢墟》)

And the color, the overcast blue
Of the air, in which the blue guitar
那色彩，那空中一片籠罩的
藍，在其中，藍色吉他

Is a form, described but difficult,
And I am merely a shadow hunched
是一個形式，可描述但卻艱深，
而我不過是一個佝僂的影子，

Above the arrowy, still strings,
The maker of a thing yet to be made;
埋頭於那箭直、靜止的琴弦，
一個待造之物的創造者；
……
——Wallace Stevens (史蒂文斯), "The Man with the Blue Guitar" (〈藍色吉他手〉)
(譯者：羅池)

有多少詩人或作家喜歡藍色呢？
這是一次沉醉及迷戀藍色的書寫。
讓我們再次並重新認識這個極度抒情的色彩。

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluets_(poetry_collection)
Bluets is a book by American author Maggie Nelson, published by Wave Books in 2009. The work hybridizes several prose and poetry styles as it documents Nelson's multifaceted experience with the color blue, and is often referred to as lyric essay or prose poetry. It was written between 2003 and 2006. The book is a philosophical and personal meditation on the color blue, lost love, grief and existential solitude. The book is full of references to other writers, philosophers and artists. The title refers to the painting Bluets by the artist Joan Mitchell.

https://www.books.com.tw/products/CN11764038
藍
作者：瑪吉‧尼爾森
譯者：翁海貞
出版社：北京聯合出版公司
出版日期：2022/04/01
語言：簡體中文

《藍》是一部哲思性的散文作品，由240段關於藍色的隨筆組成。瑪吉·尼爾森通過詩一樣的語言，以及對文學史、文化史、藝術史的旁徵博引，對藍色，這一人類歷史上多人喜愛的顏色進行了思考。她不僅僅將藍色與文學、藝術相連，更將其與自身的個人磨難、愛與渴求進行勾連，完成了一部奇妙又無法定義的藍色之書。本書是瑪吉·尼爾森暢銷和被廣泛閱讀的作品。憑借這部作品，她躋身當代傑出的抒情散文家的行列。

作者簡介
瑪吉‧尼爾森（Maggie Nelson），美國散文家、評論家、詩人，被譽為“美國當代令人振奮的作家之一”。著有《阿爾戈》（The Argonauts)、《藍》（Bluets）、《殘酷的藝術》（The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning）、《簡：一樁謀殺案》（Jane: A Murder）等作品。曾獲麥克阿瑟“天才獎”、美國國家書評獎等多個大獎，現執教於加州藝術學院。

【Excerpt】
1. 如果在開始之前，我先說這句話：我愛上一個顏色。如果我說得如同懺悔；如果我們交談的時候，我把紙餐巾撕成碎片。這愛來得緩慢。一種欣賞，一種聲氣相應。然後，某一天，便認真了。然後 (看進一隻空茶杯，杯底積澱著一層薄薄的棕色污垢，盤旋為海馬的形狀)，不知怎的變得切身。
Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color. Suppose I were to speak this as though it were a confession; suppose I shredded my napkin as we spoke. It began slowly. An appreciation, an affinity. Then, one day, it became more serious. Then (looking into an empty teacup, its bottom stained with thin brown excrement coiled into the shape of a sea horse) it became somehow personal.

2. 如此，我愛上一個顏色——就眼前的狀況來說，藍色——好似中了魔咒，一個讓我想要努力被迷惑，然後再從它底下脫身的魔咒。
And so I fell in love with a color-in this case, the color blue--as if falling under a spell, a spell I fought to stay under and get out from under, in turns.

3. 誠然，但那又如何？也許你會說，這是一種自願的錯覺。你會說，每個藍色的物體都可能是一叢燃燒的灌木，一個只有間謀能夠破譯的密碼，一個地圖上的X。只是這幅地圖太蕪蔓，從而永遠不能完全展開，但它包括了整個已知宇宙。薔薇叢中所有那些被勾住的藍色垃圾袋碎片，或者世界各地的棚屋和魚攤上方飄拂的明亮的藍色油布，怎可能在本質上都是上帝的指印？我會努力給你解釋。
Well, and what of it? A voluntary delusion, you might say. That each blue object could be a kind of burning bush, a secret code meant for a single agent, an X on a map too diffuse ever to be unfolded in entirety but that contains the knowable universe. How could all the shreds of blue garbage bags stuck in brambles, or the bright blue tarps flapping over every shanty and fish stand in the world, be, in essence, the fingerprints of God? I will try to explain this.

5. 不過，我們且先將某個範例倒推一遍。1867年，法國詩人斯特凡‧馬拉美在經歷了一段漫長的孤獨時光之後，致信友人亨利‧卡札利斯：“過去數月十分駭人。我的思想，思透其自身，抵達了一個純粹的理念。在那漫長的焦灼裡，餘下的我所承受的煎熬簡直難以為詞。”馬拉美將這焦灼形容為一次戰鬥，戰場是上帝“骨骼嶙峋的翅翼”。他精疲力竭地、得意地告訴卡札利斯：“我與披掛著古老而邪惡的羽毛的生靈——上帝——作戰；我幸運地將祂打敗，拋到地上。”後來，馬拉美開始將詩中的“le ciel”替換為“l'Azur"，企圖從天空的指涉裡滌淨宗教的意味。“幸運的是，”他在信中對卡札利斯說，“我現在差不多死了。”
But first, let us consider a sort of case in reverse. In 1867, after a long bout of solitude, the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé wrote to his friend Henri Cazalis: "These last months have been terrifying. My Thought has thought itself through and reached a Pure Idea. What the rest of me has suffered during that long agony, is indescribable." Mallarmé described this agony as a battle that took place on God's "boney wing." "I struggled with that creature of ancient and evil plumage-God--whom I fortunately defeated and threw to earth," he told Cazalis with exhausted satisfaction. Eventually Mallarmé began replacing "le ciel" with "TAzur" in his poems, in an effort to rinse references to the sky of religious connotations.