這首詩非常有趣，Frank O’hara 先以詼諧且隨性的筆法描寫紐約急促喧囂的生活，突然間，忙碌的生活步調被好萊塢八卦事件打斷，兩相對照之下便產生令人啼笑皆非的情境。

網友欣賞這首詩時，先以急速朗讀前半段來窒息之感，稍微和緩之後再以揶揄口吻唸出最後一句，藉此在高潮中結束整首詩。

 

Poem
FRANK O’HARA

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up 
 

《詩一首》
Lana Turner 暈倒了！ 
我一路小跑步前進，
突然下起雨又飄起雪，
妳說那是冰雹，
但冰雹砸到頭會很痛，
所以應該是下雪才對，
我趕著去見你，
但交通跟天空一樣亂七八糟。
突然，我看到一則新聞標題：
「Lana Turner 暈倒了！」
好萊塢沒有下雪，
加州又沒有下雨，
我參加過許多聚會，
雖然常常糗到爆，
但從來不曾暈到。
喔，Lana Turner，我們好愛你，你就起來吧。

(單字解說)
* 注意整首詩的時態運用，可知道作者是描寫一連串的事情。

* trot = (of a person) run with short steps 小步快跑
(sample usage) The child as trotting along beside its parents.

* disgraceful = causing disgrace 丟臉的；可恥的

* collapse = fall down becasue of illness or tiredness 暈倒
  

 

 

 
(八卦頭條新聞)

The Stompanato killing

Turner met Stompanato during the spring of 1957, shortly after ending her marriage to Barker. At first, Turner was susceptible to Stompanato’s good looks and prowess as a lover, but after she discovered his ties to the Los Angeles underworld (in particular, his association with gangster Mickey Cohen), she tried to break off the affair out of fear of bad publicity. Stompanato was not easily deterred, however, and over the course of the following year, they carried on a relationship filled with violent arguments, physical abuse and repeated reconciliations.

In the fall of 1957, Stompanato followed Turner to England where she was filming Another Time, Another Place (1958) costarring Sean Connery. Fearful that Turner was having an affair with Connery, Stompanato stormed onto the set brandishing a gun. Connery managed to land a single punch to Stompanato’s jaw and took away his gun. Stompanato was soon deported by Scotland Yard for the incident.
 
Lana Turner’s former home in Beverly Hills where Johnny Stompanato was killed in 1958.On the evening of April 4, 1958, Turner and Stompanato began a violent argument in Turner’s house at 730 N. Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills. Fearing her mother’s life was in danger, Turner’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Crane, grabbed a kitchen knife and ran to Turner’s defense.

(source) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lana_Turner

  

Side Note (小記)
Frank wrote this poem in one sitting, on the Staten Island Ferry, while on his way to do a poetry reading with the famous (and rather self-pitying) Robert Lowell, who was very annoyed that Frank had the temerity to read a poem he had written only 15 minutes or so before.

 

(美國讀者的觀點)

 Lana Turner was a classic bombshell of studio dominated Hollywood. She was a frequent subject of Frank, who loved her kitch appeal. The poem is supposed to be an anti-poem, from his “I do this, I do that” period. No deep meaning or language, until usually the last line. Just a list of events. It instills a feeling of NYC cool and deep care about social fabric.

 I loved this poem when I first read it (24 years ago, as a 19-year-old in a freshman poetry class) and it’s still one of my favorites. It seems so feather-weight and dashed-off, but it holds so much — Pop culture, tabloid sensibility, the voice of reason vs. breathless glamour, the NY/LA dichotomy, the weather in the way when you’re trying to get somewhere. And one of the greatest last lines ever.

 Just a great poem. Seems like lightweight fluff but it’s really simply terrific. Me, I usually go the Auden/Eliot route but this just speaks to me. I love the breathlessness of it, the New York attitude, the sudden shift as it switches to LA.

 Both are in Frank’s ‘I do this I do that’ mode, and both involve a day’s journey interrrupted by discovering a sudden news headline.

 When I was a little girl, and was having a fit about something or other (as most little girls are prone to do, really), my mom used to say, “Lana Turner has collapsed!” She’ll occasionally say it when I (now nineteen, and a huge O’Hara fan) am fretting over something, and more than once - to cheer me up - she’s said (in one breath): oh Lana Turner we love you get up!

 

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