Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and his creative writing professor.

旁白：请听一段学生与他的创作性写作课教授之间的对话。

Female professor: John, listen, I can clearly see that you put a lot of time into your response paper...

女教授：约翰，听我说。我可以清楚地看到你在读书笔记上花了不少时间……

Male student: I did! It took me forever. I rewrote it a dozen times.

男学生：是的！我花了很长时间。我重写了十几次。

Female professor: And your hard work shows. Unfortunately, it's a week late.

女教授：你的作业能够反映出这一点。但很遗憾,你晚交了一星期。

Male student: I know, sorry. I just got a little behind, you know, sports and homework... But I'm on top of things now.

男学生：我知道。对不起。我只是稍微晚了点，你知道的，我还要做运动、做作业……但是现在我把这些事都处理好了。

Female professor: Glad to hear it! Now, as for our meeting today... I'd like to talk to all of my creative writing students one-on-one at least once during the term and see how they're doing.

女教授：很高兴听到你这么说！现在，就我们今天的谈话而言，我其实是想每个学期中都能够跟我的创作性写作班上的学员至少进行一次一对一的谈话，并以此来了解一下他们的作业都完成的怎么样。

Male student: I think I'm doing OK. Busy, you know, but other than that...

男学生：我想我做的还不错。虽然很忙，你知道的，但除此之外……

Female professor: Well, I've found through the years that some of my assignments can be pretty tough for first year students like yourself.

女教授：嗯，我发现这些年来，我布置的一些作业对于像你一样的大一新生来说真的很难。

Like the response paper you just did, the explication of a Pablo Neruda poem.

就比如你刚完成的读书笔记吧，就是解读巴勃罗·聂鲁达的一首诗歌。

Uh…by the way, why did you choose "The Lemon"? It's an unusual choice.

额……顺便问一下，你为什么会选择《柠檬》这首诗呢？这个选择很不同寻常啊。

Male student: It was my favorite in a book of Neruda's poems. All the poems are about everyday objects and, you know, simple pleasures.

男学生：这是《聂鲁达诗集》中我最喜欢的一首诗。诗集中所有的诗都是关于日常事物的，还有，你知道的，关于简单的快乐。

Female professor: Right. Elemental Odes. One of my favorites.

女教授：是的，《元素的颂歌》，是我最喜欢的诗集之一。

Male student: I liked how Neruda took things like fruit and vegetables and... socks... and used metaphors and similes to describe them as these wonderful, mysterious things.

男学生：我喜欢聂鲁达将水果、蔬菜和袜子一类的东西当作描写对象的方式，并使用隐喻和明喻来将它们描写成奇妙而神秘的东西。

Like in "The Lemon", he describes a lemon falling to Earth from the stars!

就像在《柠檬》一诗中所描述的那样。他描写了一颗从星星坠落到地球上的柠檬！

And he compares a slice of lemon to a stained-glass window. It's so original!

并将柠檬片与彩色玻璃窗作对比。这非常新颖！

Female professor: Beautiful images, aren't they? Neruda didn't win the Nobel Prize for literature by accident.

女教授：很美的画面，不是吗？聂鲁达获得诺贝尔文学奖并非偶然。

Male student: No, he didn't.

男学生：是的，他得奖绝非偶然。

Female professor: Now, as you know, the paper was only the first half of the assignment...

女教授：现在，正如你所知道的，读书笔记只是这次作业的前半部分……

And I'm concerned about your ability to complete the second part on time, considering how much time the first part took you.

考虑到你在第一部分上所花费的时间，我很担心你是否能按时完成第二部分。

Male student: Actually, I finished it just before I came here.

男学生：事实上，在来这里之前，我刚好完成了第二部分。

Female professor: Excellent!

女教授：非常棒！

Male student: It was tricky, too. You know, having to write a poem inspired by "The Lemon", but in a completely different style.

男学生：第二部分也很棘手。你知道的，我得写一首灵感来源于《柠檬》，但风格又截然不同的诗。

Female professor: Right.

女教授：是的。

Male student: In order to do that, I really had to study Neruda's style and read a lot of his stuff, which was great.

男学生：为了做到这一点，我真的是不得不去研究聂鲁达的写作风格，并阅读了很多他非常优秀的作品。

But, "The Lemon" is free verse. So to do the assignment, I decided to use a strict meter--iambic pentameter, to be as different as possible.

但是《柠檬》是自由诗体。所以为了完成作业，我决定用一种严格的韵律来写——五音步抑扬格，尽可能用不同的风格写。

Female professor: So each line of your poem has ten syllables and every other syllable is stressed.

女教授：所以你的诗每一行都有十个音节，相隔的音节会重读。

Interesting choice. Iambic pentameter is certainly different from free verse!

很有趣的选择。五音步抑扬格肯定与自由诗体截然不同！

Male student: It was hard for me, though, because usually when I write a poem, I choose my own topic, and I just write. I don't worry about counting syllables or anything.

男学生：虽然这对我来说很难，因为通常当我写一首诗时，我会选择自己的主题，而我只需要写就行了。我不用去担心数音节之类的事情。

So, I'm kind of hoping we won't have more assignments like this.

所以，我有点希望我们不会再有这样的作业了。

Female professor: Sorry to disappoint you, but these assignments are designed to get you out of your comfort zone, to get you reading and writing a wide variety of poetic styles.

女教授：很抱歉要让你失望了，但是这些作业的目的是为了让你走出舒适区，让你阅读和创作各种各样的诗歌风格。