Poet Dean Young has dealt with impermanence(无常)a lot in his career, but it's a particularly strong theme in Young's latest collection, Fall Higher．The new collection was published in April, just days after the poet received a life-saving heart transplant(移植)after about a decade of living with a weakening heart condition．
Young, whoso work is often frank and rich with twisted humor, tells NPR's Renee Montaigne that as he recovers from operation, he's also slowly returning to his everyday writing habits．
"I'm getting back to it, " Young says．"Not with the sort of concentration and sort of flame that I look forward to in the future, but I am blackening some pages．"
And on those blackened pages you'll find poems like " How Grasp Green, " which carries themes of springtime and rebirth．It's one of the first poems Young has written since his transplant．
It's easy to spot clues(线索)to Young's awful health situation in the lines of his poetry．Fall Higher's "Vintage" opens with, "Because I will die soon, I fall asleep, during the lecture on the ongoing emergency．" And the poem "-The Rhythms Pronounce Themselves Then Vanish-published in The/Vew Barker in February -opens with the CT scan that revealed Young's heart condition．
Young says "Rhythms" was written about the beginning of his illness．
"I had been having a lot of physical pain so that I could hardly walk a block．I got sent to a gastroenterologist and he did a series of tests, and then the tests came back to me and it was all heart related, " he says．" And the outlook wasn't good．
Hearts tend to come up a lot in poetry, and that's especially true of Young's work, which has clearly been influenced by the troubles of his own heart,
"A lot of times, it's not just a metaphor(比喻), " Young says．"For me, it's an actual concern because I've been living with this disease for over 10 years．My father died of heart problems when he was 49, so it's been a sort of shadowy concern for me my whole life．
But Young's poems also deal with more abstract matters of the．heart．He wrote Fall Higher's, "Late Valentine" for his wife．"We've been married since late November and most of it has been spent in the hospital, " Young says of his marriage to poet Laurie Saurborn Young, who says " 'Late Valentine' is very sweet．
Today, Young says, his friends can't help but comment on how pink his cheeks have become-the result of a new heart and better circulation(循环)．But Young wrote the poems of Fall Higher before the transplant, at a time when, at its weakest point, his old heart was pumping at 8 percent of what it should have been．
He was staring death in the face-but he was still able to look at his life and see art in it．
Young's work also touches on themes of randomness and fate-two factors that contributed to him getting a second chance in the form of a new heart from a 22-year-old student．
"Everything in life is molecules(分子)bouncing against molecules, " Young says, and having a successful transplant is no different．" Somebody had to die; it had to be a fit; my blood and his blood had to not have an argument; the heart had to be transported; I had to get it．"
There were, in short, an amazing number of variables(变量)that led to Young being here today．
"I just feel enormous gratitude, " he says of his donor(捐献者)．"He gave me a heart so I'm still alive-"I'm sure I'm going to think about this person for the rest of my life．"
(1)
The poetry collection．Fall Higher ________．
[ ]
A．
was published in February
B．
refers darkness as its main theme
C．
is Young's latest collection of poetry
D．
was written after Young's heart transplant
(2)
We can learn from the text that Young ________．
[ ]
A．
was born with heart disease
B．
received a heart transplant in February
C．
married a female poet after he wrote "Late Valentine"
D．
wrote a poem for his wife in his collection
(3)
What does the writer try to say in Paragraph 3?
[ ]
A．
The writer expected some．bright future, but he was disappointed．
B．
The writer had less enthusiasm than before, but he still kept on writing．
C．
The writer devoted more time to poems, so he grasped a good chance．
D．
The writer wrote poems with less enthusiasm, so he quitted for a while．
(4)
Which of the following statements is TRUE?
[ ]
A．
"How Grasp Green" is the first poem in Fall Higher．
B．
Young began all his poems with his illness．
C．
Young's father died when Young was 49 years old．
D．
Young's health situation is mentioned in his poetry．
The ability to memorize things seems to be a vanishing(消失的)technique．So what can we do to bring out brain cells back into-action? A newly published book on memory, Moomvalking with Einstein：The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by American journalist Joshua Foer, makes a telling point, one that is an analysis of the importance of memorising events and stories in human history; the decline of its role in modem life; and the techniques that we need to adopt to restore the art of remembering．
As Foer points out, we no longer need to remember telephone numbers．Our mobile phones do that for us．We don't recall addresses either．We send emails from computers that store electronic addresses．Nor do we bother to remember multiplication tables(乘法表)．Pocket calculators do the job of multiplying quite nicely．Museums, photographs, the digital media and books also act as storehouses for memories that once we had to keep in mind．
As a result, we no longer remember long poems or folk stories by heart, feats(技艺)of memory that were once the cornerstones of most people's lives．Indeed, society has changed so much that we no longer know what techniques we should employ to remember such lengthy works．We are, quite simply, forgetting how to remember．
And let's face it, there is nothing sadder than someone who has lost their mobile phone and who finds they cannot even phone home or call their parents or partners because they cannot remember a single telephone number．That is a sad example of loss of personal independence．So, yes, there is a need for us to he able to remember certain things in life．
Therefore, Foer's book outlines the methods that need to be mastered in order to promote our memories and regain the ability to recall long strings of names, numbers or faces．In the process, he adds, we will become more aware of the world about us．
The trick, Foer says, is to adopt a process known as " elaborative encoding", which involves transforming information, such as a shopping list, into a series of "absorbing visual images"．If you want to remember a list of household objects-potatoes, cottage cheese, sugar and other items, then visualise them in an unforgettable manner, he says．Start by creating an image of a large jar of potatoes standing in the garden．Next to it, imagine a giant tub of cottage cheese-the size of an outdoor pool-and then picture Lady Gaga swimming in it．And so on．Each image should be as fantastic and memorable as possible．
Using methods like this, it becomes possible to achieve great feats of memory quite easily, Foer says．It certainly seems to have worked for him：he won the annual US Memory Championships after learning how to memorize 120 random digits in five minutes; the first and last names of 156 strangers in 15 minutes; and a deck of cards in under two minutes．"What I had really trained my brain to do, as much as to memorise, was to be more mindful and to pay attention to the world around, " he says．
These techniques employed by Foer to master his memory were developed by Ed Cooke-a British writer and a world memory championship grandmaster．He acted as Foer's trainer during preparations for the book and helped him achieve his championship performances．" Memory techniques do just one thing：they make information more meaningful to the mind, making the things we try to learn unforgettably bright and amusing, " said Cooke．
(1)
Which of the following is conveyed in this article?
[ ]
A．
People become more independent with modern equipment．
B．
The memory's role in life is declining in modem society．
C．
Memory techniques can make information less meaningful．
D．
Ed Cooke is the first one who benefited from Foer's techniques．
(2)
According to Joshua Foer, people no longer memorize information today because ________．
[ ]
A．
museums can do everything for them．
B．
they no longer have the ability to memorize things．
C．
they have things that can act as storehouses for memories．
D．
it is not necessary to memorize anything in modem life．
(3)
One method of memorizing things mentioned in the passage is to ________．
[ ]
A．
link things to famous pop stars
B．
find the connection between different things
C．
form vivid, unforgettable images of certain things
D．
use advanced digital imaging technology to help
(4)
The underlined word "visualise" in the last paragraph most probably means " ________ "．
