미국의 계관 시인(poet laureate)이자 1990년 퓰리처상 수상자인이자
다수에 걸쳐서 퓰리처 상 본선까지 올라간 시 작품을 쓴
찰스 시미치(Charles Simic)씨가 1월 9일에
84세 나이로 세상을 떠났다.
시미치는 1938년 세르비아(전 유고슬라비아)의 수도인
벨그레이드에서 태어났다.
그의 유년 시절은 2차 세계 대전이 한창이어서,
무작위로 퍼붓는 폭격을 피해서 자주 피난을 다녀야 했고,
전쟁의 참혹함을 목격하면서
그의 세계관과 작품 세계에 큰 영향을 끼치게 된다.
그가 16세가 되던 1954년에 가족과 함께 미국으로 건너와서
시카고에서 정착해서 살았다.
그는 새로운 나라에서 여러 가지 어려움 속에서도
다양한 알바를 하면서 1966년에 NYU 대학교를 졸업했다.
그리고 1973년부터 뉴햄셔 대학교에서 미국 영문학과
creative writing 교수로 오래 재직하다가 근래까지 명예교수를 역임했다.
20대까지 영어로 글을 쓰지 않았던 그는
놀랍게도 영어로 쓴 20여 권의 책을 출판했는데
많은 평론가들이 그를 당대의 최고의 시인으로 꼽았다.
그의 글을 어둡고 절망적이면서도 코믹한 시각으로 쓰였는데,
2차 대전 중의 유고슬라비아에서 어린 시절을 보낸 영향이 컸다.
그의 시 작품은 대부분 짧고 예리한 단어로 쓰였으며,
반전과 무드와 이미지의 변화를 담고 있는데,
이는 어린 시절의 경험한 전쟁의 참혹함과
그 참혹성의 무작위적인 면을 반영한 듯하다.
그의 주요 작품집을 들자면
1990년에 퓰리처상을 수상한 'The World Doesn't End';
1996년에 본선에 오른 'Walking the Black Cat';
'Unending Blues'와 'The Lunatic and Scribbled in the Dark' 등이 있다.
2005년에 그리핀상/Griffinbg poetry prize를 수상한 그의 작품을
"시의 마술사, 요술쟁이인 동시에,
마음을 어루만져주고,
간단함이 아니라, 아무렇지 않은 듯하면서 예리한 표현의 대가"라고
심사위원들이 입을 모아 호평했다.
아울러 그는 다수의 언어에 능통했으며,
불어, 세르비아어, 크로아티아어, 마케도니아어와 슬로비니어 출신
시인들의 작품들을 영어 번역 작품도 다수 남겼다.
시미치는 1964년에 패션 디자이너인 헬렌 더블린과 결혼해서
슬하에 두 자녀를 두었다.
1971년에 미국 시민권을 취득했으며,
1973년부터 뉴햄셔 대학교에서 근래까지 미국 영문학과 교수로 재직했다.
그는 시 작품만이 아니라 재즈, 철학 등 다양한 주제로 글을 썼으며,
에밀리 디킨슨, 파블로 네루다와 팟츠 왈러의 영향을 많이 받았다.
그는 'The Paris Review' 시 잡지의 편집장을 역임했으며,
1995년에 미국 인문학 아카데미 멤버로 선출되었고,
2000년에 미국 시 아카데미의 학장으로 선출되었다.
제가 좋아하는 시미치 시인의 12편의 영시를 소개합니다.
그중 4 편(#1, 2, 9, 12)을 한글로 번역해 보았습니다.
1. How To Psalmodize/시편을 어떻게 노래할까요
by Charles Simic
1. The Poet
Someone awake when others are sleeping,
Asleep when others are awake.
An illiterate who signs everything with an X.
A man about to be hanged cracking a joke.
1. 시인
남들이 다 잠이 들었을 때에 깨어있고,
남들이 깨어 있을 때에 자는 사람.
글을 못 읽어서, 모든 서류에 X자로 서명하는 사람.
조크를 말한 죄로 참수형에 처해진 사람.
2. The Poem
It is a piece of meat
Carried by a burglar
To distract a watchdog.
2. 시
감시견의 주위를 피하기 위해서
도둑이 지참한
고기 한 덩이.
2. The Partial Explanation/부분적인 설명
by Charles Simic
Seems like a long time
Since the waiter took my order.
Grimy little luncheonette,
The snow falling outside.
내가 웨이터에게 주문을 한지
시간이 꽤 흐른 듯하다.
칙칙하고 자그마한 식당 바깥은
눈이 내리고 있다.
Seems like it has grown darker
Since I last heard the kitchen door
Behind my back
Since I last noticed
Anyone pass on the street.
내 뒤에 있는
식당 부엌 문소리를 마지막으로 들은 지
날은 점점 어둑어둑해졌다.
그리고 식당 밖의
길거리에 아무도 보이지 않은 때부터
A glass of ice-water
Keeps me company
At this table I chose myself
Upon entering.
이 식당에 들어와서
내가 선택한 테이블 위에 놓인
얼음물 한잔만이
나와 함께 해 준다.
And a longing,
Incredible longing
To eavesdrop
On the conversation
Of cooks.
갈망이여,
지독한 갈망이여
쿡들의 이야기를
엿듣고 싶은
이 갈망이여.
3. Against Winter
by Charles Simic
The truth is dark under your eyelids.
What are you going to do about it?
The birds are silent; there's no one to ask.
All day long you'll squint at the gray sky.
When the wind blows you'll shiver like straw.
A meek little lamb you grew your wool
Till they came after you with huge shears.
Flies hovered over open mouth,
Then they, too, flew off like the leaves,
The bare branches reached after them in vain.
Winter coming. Like the last heroic soldier
Of a defeated army, you'll stay at your post,
Head bared to the first snow flake.
Till a neighbor comes to yell at you,
You're crazier than the weather, Charlie.
4. A Book Full of Pictures
by Charles Simic
Father studied theology through the mail
And this was exam time.
Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book
Full of pictures. Night fell.
My hands grew cold touching the faces
Of dead kings and queens.
There was a black raincoat
in the upstairs bedroom
Swaying from the ceiling,
But what was it doing there?
Mother's long needles made quick crosses.
They were black
Like the inside of my head just then.
The pages I turned sounded like wings.
"The soul is a bird," he once said.
In my book full of pictures
A battle raged: lances and swords
Made a kind of wintry forest
With my heart spiked and bleeding in its branches.
5. This Morning
by Charles Simic
Enter without knocking, hard-working ant.
I'm just sitting here mulling over
What to do this dark, overcast day?
It was a night of the radio turned down low,
Fitful sleep, vague, troubling dreams.
I woke up lovesick and confused.
I thought I heard Estella in the garden singing
And some bird answering her,
But it was the rain. Dark tree tops swaying
And whispering. "Come to me my desire,"
I said. And she came to me by and by,
Her breath smelling of mint, her tongue
Wetting my cheek, and then she vanished.
Slowly day came, a gray streak of daylight
To bathe my hands and face in.
Hours passed, and then you crawled
Under the door, and stopped before me.
You visit the same tailors the mourners do,
Mr. Ant. I like the silence between us,
The quiet--that holy state even the rain
Knows about. Listen to her begin to fall,
As if with eyes closed,
Muting each drop in her wild-beating heart.
6. Country Fair
by Charles Simic
for Hayden Carruth
If you didn't see the six-legged dog,
It doesn't matter.
We did, and he mostly lay in the corner.
As for the extra legs,
One got used to them quickly
And thought of other things.
Like, what a cold, dark night
To be out at the fair.
Then the keeper threw a stick
And the dog went after it
On four legs, the other two flapping behind,
Which made one girl shriek with laughter.
She was drunk and so was the man
Who kept kissing her neck.
The dog got the stick and looked back at us.
And that was the whole show.
7. The Supreme Moment
by Charles Simic
As an ant is powerless
Against a raised boot,
And only has an instant
To have a bright idea or two.
The black boot so polished,
He can see himself
Reflected in it, distorted,
Perhaps made larger
Into a huge monster ant
Shaking his arms and legs
Threateningly?
The boot may be hesitating,
Demurring, having misgivings,
Gathering cobwebs,
Dew?
Yes, and apparently no.
8. To The One Upstairs
by Charles Simic
Boss of all bosses of the universe.
Mr. know-it-all, wheeler-dealer, wire-puller,
And whatever else you're good at.
Go ahead, shuffle your zeros tonight.
Dip in ink the comets' tails.
Staple the night with starlight.
You'd be better off reading coffee dregs,
Thumbing the pages of the Farmer's Almanac.
But no! You love to put on airs,
And cultivate your famous serenity
While you sit behind your big desk
With zilch in your in-tray, zilch
In your out-tray,
And all of eternity spread around you.
Doesn't it give you the creeps
To hear them begging you on their knees,
Sputtering endearments,
As if you were an inflatable, life-size doll?
Tell them to button up and go to bed.
Stop pretending you're too busy to take notice.
Your hands are empty and so are your eyes.
There's nothing to put your signature to,
Even if you knew your own name,
Or believed the ones I keep inventing,
As I scribble this note to you in the dark.
9. Watermelons/수박
by Charles Simic
Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.
초록의 부처님들이
과일 진열대에 앉아있어요..
우리는 그의 미소를 먹고
그의 이빨을 뱉어내지요.
10. Wherein Obscurely
by Charles Simic
On the road with billowing poplars,
In a country flat and desolate
To the far-off gray horizon, wherein obscurely,
A man and a woman went on foot,
Each carrying a small suitcase.
They were tired and had taken off
Their shoes and were walking on
Their toes, staring straight ahead.
Every time a car passed fast,
As they're wont to on such a stretch of
Road, empty as the crow flies,
How quickly they were gone--
The cars, I mean, and then the drizzle
That brought on the early evening,
Little by little, and hardly a light
Anywhere, and then not even that.
11. The Bather
by Charles Simic
Where the path to the lake twists out of sight,
A puff of dust, the kind bare feet make running,
Is what I saw in the dying light,
Night swooping down everywhere else.
A low branch heavy with leaves
Swaying momentarily where the shade
Lay thickest, some late bather
Disrobing right there for a quick dip--
(Or my solitude playing a trick on me?)
Pinned hair coming undone, soon to float
As she turns on her back, letting
The dozy current take her as it wishes
Beyond the last drooping branch
To where the sky opens
Black as the water under her white arms,
In the deepening night, deepening hush,
The treetops like charred paper edges,
Even the insects oddly reclusive
While I strained to hear a splash,
Or glimpse her running back to her clothes . . .
And when I did not; I just sat there.
The rare rush of wind in the leaves
Still fooling me now and then,
Until the chill made me go in.
12. Poem Without A Title/무제의 시
by Charles Simic
I say to the lead
Why did you let yourself
Be cast into a bullet?
Have you forgotten the alchemists?
Have you given up hope
In turning into gold?
나는 납에게 물어보았어요
왜 총알로 만들어지도록
그냥 놔두었나요?
연금술사들의 존재를 잊어버렸나요?
황금으로 변신할 수 있는
희망을 저버렸나요?
Nobody answers.
Lead. Bullet. With names
Such as these
The sleep is deep and long.
아무도 대답하지 않네요.
납, 총알. 이런 이름을
가진 것들은
오랫동안 깊은 잠에 빠져있네요.
한글 번역: N. H. Kim©
한글 번역은 잠시 후 내립니다.
