原诗：
Twelve people, most of us strangers, stand in a room
in Ann Arbor, drinking Cribari from jars.
Then two young men, who cooked him,
carry him to the table
on a large square of plywood: his body
striped, like a tiger cat’s, from the basting,
his legs long, much longer than a cat’s,
and the striped hide as shiny as vinyl.
Now I see his head, as he takes his place
at the center of the table,
his wide pig’s head; and he looks like the
javelina
that ran in front of the car, in the desert outside Tucson,
and I am drawn to him, my brother the pig,
with his large ears cocked forward,
with his tight snout, with his small ferocious teeth
in a jaw propped open
by an apple. How bizarre, this raw apple clenched
in a cooked face! Then I see his eyes,
his eyes cramped shut, his no-eyes, his eyes like X’s
in a comic strip, when the character gets knocked out.
This afternoon they read directions
from a book:
The eyeballs must be removed
or they will burst during roasting.
So they hacked them out.
"I nearly fainted," says someone.
"I never fainted before, in my whole life."
Then they gutted the pig and stuffed him,
and roasted him five hours, basting the long body.
??????????????????*
Now we examine him, exclaiming, and we marvel at him—
but no one picks up a knife.
Then a young woman cuts off his head.
It comes off so easily, like a detachable part.
With sudden enthusiasm we dismantle the pig,
we wrench his trotters off, we twist them
at shoulder and hip, and they come off so easily.
Then we cut open his belly and pull the skin back.
For myself, I scoop a portion of left thigh,
moist, tender, falling apart, fat, sweet.
We forage like an army starving in winter
that crosses a pass in the hills and discovers
a valley of full barns—
cattle fat and lowing in their stalls,
bins of potatoes in root cellars under white farmhouses.
barrels of cider, onions, hens squawking over eggs—
and the people nowhere, with bread still warm in the oven.
Maybe, south of the valley, refugees pull their carts
listening for Stukas or elephants, carrying
bedding, pans, and silk dresses,
old men and women, children, deserters, young wives.
No, we are here, eating the pig together.
??????????????????*
In ten minutes, the destruction is total.
His tiny ribs, delicate as birds’ feet, lie crisscrossed.
Or they are like crosshatching in a drawing,
lines doubling and redoubling on each other.
Bits of fat and muscle
mix with stuffing alien to the body,
walnuts and plums. His skin, like a parchment bag
soaked in oil, is pulled back and flattened,
with ridges and humps remaining, like a contour map,
like the map of a defeated country.
The army consumes every blade of grass in the valley,
every tree, every stream, every village,
every crossroad, every shack, every book, every graveyard.
His intact head
swivels around, to view the landscape of body
as if in dismay.
"For sixteen weeks I lived. For sixteen weeks
I took into myself nothing but the milk of my mother
who rolled on her side for me,
for my brothers and sisters. Only five hours roasting,
and this body so quickly dwindles away to nothing."
??????????????????*
By itself, isolated on this plywood,
among this puzzle of foregone possibilities,
his intact head seems to want affection.
Without knowing that I will do it,
I reach out and scratch his jaw,
and I stroke him behind his ears,
as if he might suddenly purr from his cooked head.
"When I stroke your pig’s ears,
and scratch the striped leather of your jowls,
the furrow between the sockets of your eyes,
I take into myself, and digest,
wheat that grew between
the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
"And I take into myself the flint carving tool,
and the savannah, and hairs in the tail
of Eohippus, and fingers of bamboo,
and Hannibal’s elephant, and Hannibal,
and everything that lived before us, everything born,
exalted, and dead, and historians who carved in the Old Kingdom
when the wall had not heard about China."
I speak these words
into the ear of the Stone Age pig, the Abraham
pig, the ocean pig, the Achilles pig,
and into the ears
of the fire pig that will eat our bodies up.
"Fire, brother and father,
twelve of us, in our different skins, older and younger,
opened your skin together
and tore your body apart, and took it
into our bodies."
诗歌分析与解读
这首引人深思的诗叙述了一个围绕烤猪肉和分享的共同体验。场景设定在安阿伯，十二个大多数不熟悉的人聚集在一起参与这一仪式。诗中生动地描述了猪在烹饪后的外观，强调了它条纹状、光亮的身体和宽大的头部，唤起了复杂的迷恋、亲情和不安的情感。
这首诗探讨了生命与死亡、社区以及人类与动物的相互联系等主题。猪几乎被描绘成一个有历史和个性的生物，被称为“我的兄弟猪”，这加深了情感的冲击。对猪身体的详细描述——它的眼睛被挖去，嘴里含着一个苹果，精致的肋骨——强调了从生物到食物的转变，突显了饮食的仪式性和原始性。
这首诗还反映了人类与动物之间的历史和进化联系，提及古代工具、景观和文明。说话者抚摸猪头的行为象征着对这一共同过去和生命与死亡循环的尊重。
背景与作者介绍
虽然这首诗没有明确提及作者的名字，但它反映了一种在当代诗歌中常见的风格，融合了个人叙事与生动的意象和哲学反思。安阿伯的背景暗示了一个现代的、可能是学术或艺术的社区聚会，而对猪和仪式的详细、几乎人类学的描述则暗示了自然写作和文化人类学的影响。
这首诗的语调在尊重与原始诚实之间取得平衡，邀请读者面对食物消费的现实以及人类与他们所吃动物之间常被忽视的联系。这种诗歌鼓励对伦理饮食、传统和人类与自然的关系进行反思。
教育价值与学习要点
学生和儿童可以从这首诗中学习到几个重要的课程：
- 对食物和动物的尊重：这首诗鼓励读者深入思考他们的食物来源，并欣赏维持他们生命的生命。
- 社区与分享：陌生人围绕共享餐点的聚会突显了联系与合作的主题。
- 描述性语言与意象：这首诗提供了丰富的隐喻、明喻和生动的感官描述示例，对语言艺术学习非常有用。
- 文化与历史意识：对古代工具、地理和历史的提及邀请跨学科的学习，涉及历史、地理和人类学。
- 情感智力：诗中迷恋、不适和尊重的混合帮助学生探索与生命和死亡相关的复杂情感。
生活与学习中的应用
- 在文学课上：这首诗可以用来教授意象、象征和叙事声音。
- 在社会研究中：它可以引入关于食物传统、仪式和文化实践的讨论。
- 在伦理与哲学中：这首诗引发关于人类与动物关系和伦理饮食的辩论。
- 在科学中：它可以作为探索动物生物学和食物链的起点。
- 在个人成长中：鼓励对消费的正念和感恩。
阅读理解问题
- 这首诗发生在哪里，场景中有多少人参与？
- 猪在烹饪后是如何描述的，和哪些动物进行了比较？
- 说话者对猪表达了什么情感？
- 猪嘴里的苹果有什么意义？
- 诗中的人们在用餐时如何与猪的身体互动？
- 说话者提到了哪些历史和进化的参考？
- 这首诗探讨了关于生命、死亡和社区的哪些主题？
- 你认为说话者在诗的结尾抚摸猪的头有什么原因？
- 这首诗让你如何思考人类与动物之间的关系？
- 从这首诗中可以学到哪些关于尊重和感恩的课程？
答案
- 这首诗发生在安阿伯，有十二个人，大多数是陌生人。
- 猪被描述为像虎猫一样有条纹，腿长且光亮，头部与野猪相似。
- 说话者与猪感到亲近，称其为“我的兄弟”，表现出迷恋、尊重和悲伤的混合情感。
- 猪嘴里的苹果是烤制的传统象征，但它的生硬与烹饪后的身体形成鲜明对比，创造出一种奇异而引人注目的形象。
- 人们热情地拆解猪肉，惊叹于它，但起初犹豫切割，然后热切分享肉。
- 说话者提及古代工具、草原、汉尼拔等历史人物，以及早期文明，将猪与人类历史联系起来。
- 这首诗探讨了死亡、生命循环、共同分享和人类与自然的联系等主题。
- 抚摸猪的头象征着尊重、亲情和对猪的生命与牺牲的认可。
- 这首诗鼓励反思人类对动物的依赖以及伦理饮食的考虑。
- 课程包括对生命的尊重、对食物的感恩、对生命循环的意识以及社区的重要性。
这首诗提供了对饮食仪式的深刻沉思，作为一种连接过去与现在、生命与死亡，以及通过共同的滋养和纪念行为将陌生人聚集在一起的人类体验。
