Mountain Emptiness

　Mountain Emptiness

The ways you climb on and slip down
Are so different—

Coming up, you are
So high and spirited

Slipping out, you are all
Flaccid except your mouth
That never gives in

But I am still a mountain
Still styled Emptiness

Despite all these years when

You climb on me with all your members
Once and again
You are but a monkey

Scratching
But never filling me
　　　　　　Feb. 16 2008

　　空山怨

感觉你爬上来和滑下去
非常不同——

上来的时候
你一时兴起但勃勃生机

下去的时候
除了一张嘴之外，你所有的坚硬
都疲软了

而我还是一座山
仍然称为空山

因为这么多年来——　　　

你们双手双脚
无数次上来下去
像猴子

给我瘙痒
却从来不曾将我充满

按：这首诗本来是根据一首闹得满城风雨的诗写出来的，但是我觉得它自有其自身的意义。原本可谓是一首讽刺诗，但是我想它更是诗歌自身的怨诉。
Note: This poem is initially written after and against a controversial poem, but I find it having its own merit. My poem intends to be a satire, but it is more about the poetry itself. I hope that my poem will not lend to a sexist reading but point to the traditional concept of poetry as Muse's offspring.

Early in 2008, a group of Chinese scholars and poets from Nanjing produced a billboard of good and bad poems published in 2007. The number one on the bad poem list is a poem entitled A Note on Mountain Kongdong by Yisha (Wu Wenjian), which was published in the most famous mainstream (government sponsored) magazine Poetry Journal (《诗刊》). The poem reads:

《崆峒山小记》
　　　　　　伊沙
上去时和下来时的感觉
是非常不同的——

上去的时候
那山隐现在浓雾之中

下来的时候
这山暴露在艳阳之下

像是两座山
不知哪座更崆峒

不论哪一座
我都爱着这崆峒

因为这是
多年以来——

我用自己的双脚
踏上的头一座山
　　2006.7

My literal translation (Kongdong as the name of the mountian is kept, as the name is homophonic to the phrase meaning Empty):

　A Note on Mountain Kongdong
　　　　　　　　　　　by Yisha
The feeling of going up and that of coming down
are quite different--

When I went up
the mountian was at times seen in thick fog

When I came down
the mountain was exposed in the bright sun

They appeared to be two mountains
I did not know which one is more Kongdong

No matter what
I love this Kongdong just the same

Because this is
for so many years

the first mountain
I have climbed with my own feet
　　　　　　　　　July 2006

The chaos of contemporary poetry scene is partially attributed to the ungoverned overflow of so-called colloquial poetry, which has been ridiculed as being written with "enter" key only. By "ungoverned" is meant that, apart from what Heaney calls "the government of tongue," poetry-writing has become so easy a thing that whatever written in lines are styled as poems and that there is no agreed-on standard as to what is a poem. These poem-makers on the one hand obviously advocate the free-publication on the internet (free from the government censorship) while on the other hand reject the so-called "cloister school" (mainly more intellectually difficult university campus poets).