Barack Obama is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

巴拉克-奥巴马是第44届美国总统。毕业于哥伦比亚大学和哈佛大学法学院。 他在2009年获得诺贝尔和平奖。

Ziqing Zhang is professor of Institute of Foreign Literature, Nanjing University, Nanjing, guest research Fellow of Chinese American Literature Research Center, Beijing University of Foreign Studies, Beijing. He was a visiting scholar as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University from 1982 to 1983 and Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University and The University of California at Berkeley from 1993 to 1994. His works include A History of 20th Century American Poetry (1995, 1997), Selected Poems of T.S.Eliot (1985), Selected American Poems (1993) and Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes (1998). He has co-authored Two Sides of the Globe: Contemporary Chinese and American Literatures and Their Comparison (1993) and On American New Pastoral Poems (2006). He has received many awards including The First Prize of Humanities Research Science Foundation of Nanjing University in 1998.

张子清是南京大学外国文学研究所教授，北京外国语大学华裔美国文学研究中心客座研究员。哈佛-燕京访问学者（1982-83），美国富布莱特访问学者（1993-94）。中国作家协会会员、全国美国文学研究会常务理事、中国比较文学学会会员。代表作：《20世纪美国诗歌史》（1995，1997）。主编 “华裔美国小说丛书”（译林出版社）、“西方人看中国丛书”（南京出版社）。

Pop

老爸

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes,
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I'm sure he's unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he's still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He's so unhappy, to which he replies . . .
But I don't care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I've been saving; I'm laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I've got on mine and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; 'cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop's black-framed glasses
And know he's laughing too.
			

老爸坐在他宽大而破旧的
坐垫上，掸下一些香烟灰，
转换电视频道，再呷一口
烈性西格兰姆酒，问
我该怎么办，一个未经世事的
年轻人，不谙尔虞我诈的世界，
因为我一直很顺利；我直视
他的脸，紧盯到他的眉毛为止；
我肯定，他全然不知自己
水汪汪的黑眼睛，眼神游移不定，
他那缓慢的令人不快的痉挛
也不停止。
我聆听，点头
聆听，敞开听，直至我紧紧地抓住
他淡色米黄的T恤衫，大吼，
朝着他大耳垂的耳朵大声吼，
而他仍然讲着他的笑话，我便问他
为什么如此不开心，于是他回答……
但是我不再想听，他唠叨得太长了，
从我的座位底下，我抽出一面
我一直保存的镜子；我哈哈大笑，
放纵地大声笑，血色从他的脸上
冲上我的脸，他于是变得越来越小，
小到成了我头脑中的一个小点，
一个可以被挤出来的小东西，像一粒
夹在手指间的西瓜籽。
老爸又呷了一口烈性酒，指出
他的和我的短裤沾有相同的琥珀色污迹，
让我闻一闻他的气味，从我身上传过去的
气味；他转换频道，背诵一首旧诗，
一首他在他母亲去世前写的诗，
站起身来，大声说，要我拥抱他，
我躲闪着，我的手臂几乎围不住
他厚实油腻的脖子和宽阔的后背，
我看见我的脸镶在他的
黑框眼镜里，而我知道他也在笑。

注: 1981年奥巴马在洛杉矶的Occidental　
College念大学时，在该校名为Feast的文学刊
物上发表了这首诗Pop《老爸》和另一首诗。