Philip Schultz is the author of several collections of poetry, including Failure (Harcourt, 2007), winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. His other collections include The God of Loneliness: New and Selected Poems (2010), Living in the Past (2004), and The Holy Worm of Praise (2002). He is also the author of Deep Within the Ravine (1984) and Like Wings (1978).

菲利普-舒尔茨出版过近十本诗集，包括：《失败》（2007，获2008年普利策奖）；《孤独之神：新诗选》（2010）；《生活在过去》（2004）以及《赞美的神圣之虫》（2002）。舒尔茨早期的诗作有《沟壑深处》（1984）与《像翅膀》（1978）。

冯冬，1979年生于重庆，南京大学英文系博士毕业，现任教于暨南大学，译过游记《中华帝国纪行》、《亲密接触中国》、小说《蛛网与磐石》等，在海内外诗刊发表作品，与人合著诗集《残酷的乌鸦》（2011），主要研究诗歌、精神分析和当代哲学。

Peter Feng was born in Chongqing, China, in 1979. He has received a Ph.D degree in literature from Nanjing University and currently teaches English at Jinan University. He has co-translated A Journey through the Chinese Empire, Intimate China, and The Web and the Rock, and co-written a book of poems Cruel Raven (2011). His study includes poetry, psychoanalysis, and contemporary philosophy.

Personal History

个人历史

My father is playing solitaire in the last train compartment.
He turns over a card named The End of the Journey Is Grief.
He is after God, the conductor says, taking our unmarked tickets.

My mother stands at the end of the corridor, frozen in her silence
Like a fly seized in amber. The train passes the house where I was born
& the wheel in my chest slaps my ribs awake. I wave at myself (the boy

in the attic window) but cannot hear what I am crying as we pass
the cemetery where all our personal history is buried. You will be 
remembered only in the dark dreams of strangers, the conductor sings.

Yes, but faith isn't allowed in our century, my mother answers.
We are all born in exile, my father says, turning over a card named
Diaspora. Yes, it has been that all along, I think, holding my own hand.

My mother anoints me with the brilliant glass of her disaffection
as we all stare out the window into the dark where the stars continue
to survive like syllables of an extinct but beautiful language. 
			

父亲在最后一节车厢里玩单人纸牌。
翻开一张牌叫做“旅途终点即悲痛”。
他寻找上帝，列车员说，拿走未剪的票。

母亲站在走道尽头，被沉默冻僵如飞虫
陷入琥珀。火车经过我出生的房子时
我胸里的轮子拍醒我的肋骨。我朝自己

（顶窗的小男孩）挥手，我们经过埋葬一切
个人历史的坟墓时我听不见自己在喊什么，
你只在陌生人的黑暗之梦中被记起，列车员唱到。

是的，但信仰在我们的世纪已不被允许，母亲说。
我们诞生于流亡，父亲说，翻开一张牌叫做
“离散”。是的，一直如此，我紧握自己的手。

母亲用她不满的闪亮杯子为我涂上圣油，
我们注视窗外的黑暗，看见星星继续幸存
如一种已消逝却美丽的语言的音节。