澳门威尼斯人网上赌场的一位诗人在她最新的诗集中“探索了黑暗时代光明的一面”.
有时候，拖延会得到回报——至少梅丽莎·巴尔曼(Melissa Balmain)就是这样.
Balmain, now an instructor in the Department of English at the University of Rochester, was writing the book Just Us: Adventures and Travels of a Mother and Daughter (Faber & Faber, 1998年)，当时她得知大学里的两个朋友正在通过电子邮件创作和分享短篇喜剧诗歌. 巴尔曼觉得自己发现了一种有趣的拖延方式，于是写了几首诗. Then a few more. And some more after that.
虽然她成功地完成了她的书，但她也开始了新的职业生涯，成为一名轻诗诗人.
巴尔曼说:“我总是写一些诗歌或歌词，而且几乎都是喜剧。. “但直到我30多岁的时候，我才开始写很多喜剧诗.”
She hasn’t stopped writing since. Her latest book, Satan Talks to His Therapist (Paul Dry Books, 2023)，“探索黑暗时代光明的一面.” Those dark times, described by Balmain as a “descent to hell,” included climate change, crazy politics, and the modern plague, better known as COVID-19. 然而，下降之后是一种诗意的努力，从深处爬出来, albeit with some side trips to Limbo along the way.
“我们中的许多人都通过享受世界上的美好来应对, whether that’s family, great works of art, or humor, even silliness,” says Balmain, who was experiencing some major changes in her personal life, including a looming empty nest. 她自己也喜欢幽默和愚蠢，将其作为一种应对机制和创作动力, 这导致了她在新书中出现的一些尖锐的观察.
该系列以“看核磁共振成像横截面”(On Looking at an MRI Cross-Section)开篇,这首诗与作者大脑的核磁共振扫描图像并列, 这张照片是巴尔曼经历了异常严重的头痛时拍的. While no brain abnormalities were discovered, 尽管如此，巴尔曼还是觉得这件事“有点令人麻痹”.”
“这是在一个绝对可怕的主题中寻求幽默的一个很好的例子,” says Balmain. “The scan showed all these objects in my brain. 然后我开始思考这些奇怪的东西是如何产生我的诗的.”
Satan Talks to His Therapist touches on a wide variety of topics, including Shakespeare, Niagara Falls, donuts, middle age, grief, birdwatching, and pandemic-era masks. 据巴尔曼估计，63篇文章中大部分都是幽默的——占85%. That should be no surprise, considering how she’s wired. 巴尔曼解释说:“我很早就发现，如果我很有趣，我就能引起人们的注意。. “对我来说，在各种情况下寻求幽默是很自然的，有时作为一种应对机制.”
但不要把喜剧诗或轻松的诗歌误认为是琐碎或无忧无虑的东西. Balmain is constantly working to dispel that assumption. As she says, “我最喜欢的那种轻松的诗歌与人类经验的真实有关, whether that’s society or human nature.”
巴尔曼分享了她的专业经验，为她的写作提供了灵感. 除了在大学期间和毕业后做过一段时间的哑剧演员, she’s been a journalist; newspaper columnist; college professor; and is now the editor-in-chief of America’s longest-running journal of comic verse, Light.
一旦她发现了轻松诗歌的满足感，巴尔曼就开始认真对待那些不那么严肃的诗歌. She wrote two books of poems: Walking in on People (Able Muse Press, 2014) and 《澳门威尼斯人网上赌场》 (Humorist Books, 2021). 多年来，她的作品，包括散文，也出现在, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among other outlets.
她成功的基础是在她上学的早期，当时她阅读多萝西·帕克等作家的作品, Erma Bombeck, and Russell Baker, 听听斯蒂芬·桑德海姆和汤姆·莱勒(通常很幽默)的歌词. As an undergraduate at Princeton University, she took courses with writing luminaries, including John McPhee, Sandra Gilbert, Russell Banks, and Joyce Carol Oates. Her education continued after college, when she had opportunities to study with poets Dick Davis, Rhina P. Espaillat, Emily Grosholz, R.S. Gwynn, X.J. Kennedy, Joshua Mehigan, and Timothy Steele.
从有成就的作家和诗人那里学习写作技巧的, 2010年，巴尔曼以兼职讲师的身份加入罗彻斯特大学(University of Rochester)英语系，她的职业生涯又回到了起点. 在她教授的课程中，有一门200级的幽默写作课程.
“这是一个帮助人们用他们所拥有的尽最大努力的问题. Will I be able to turn Debbie Downer into Tina Fey? Probably not,” says Balmain. “But I do think that with techniques that we study in class, it is possible for someone to be funnier on the page.”
巴尔曼认为，其中最重要的技巧之一就是制造惊喜. “如果它不能让你的读者感到惊讶，他们就不会笑.”
笑声是她最新项目的主要目标之一. She’s working with the managing editor of Light 编辑一本自1992年以来最好的诗歌选集.
当她不编辑和教学时，Balmain将继续写作. 因为，正如她所说，“写诗的人总是在写诗.”
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