Fan Jinghua: Afternoon in a Café

　　Afternoon in a Café

For a whole afternoon, the afternoon is sinking
Muzak drowns human voices

Then you stand up, about to buy a pack of cigarettes
Of the same brand as the slender ones in the girl’s silver cassette
I take a glimpse of a spontaneous poem we all agree to try
The lines by the novelist much shorter
Than what the poet has written

By the winding staircase behind them
A mosquito killer flows out eerie fluorescence
Watching the whitish loops from our mouths
Rubbing each other, no sound
　　　　　　　　June 4, 2005

猫空的下午

整个下午下午一直在下沉
背景音乐淹没了人声

当你离座试图去买一包
某个女生烟盒里的香烟
我隔座瞥见
那首我们都同意的诗
小说家的句子很短
诗人的句子很长

他们背后的旋转楼梯下
灭蚊器放出异怪的荧光
烟圈从我们头上升起
在天花板上纠缠，没有声息
　　　　　　　　2005年6月4日



　　　　　Friends and Me (left) in the Cafe on June 1, 2005 (Nanjing)

Note: The Cafe 猫空 is on Shanghai Road, Nanjing, where I used to spend a few afternoons with a couple of friends when this poem was written.
猫空是南京上海路上的一个咖啡馆，我在写作这首诗的时候曾经和几位朋友在那儿度过几个下午和晚上。

Fan Jinghua: Aubade

　　　Aubade

Sending off our kid, I stand on the corridor
The traffic noises, dark umbrellas of trees and faces of lit buildings
Contrast my memory of the north, above which
Daylight shoots through the colored clouds
Our home country, with a different morning-scape, lies there, low
My wife must have seen my stupor and sensed my coldness
She walks over, holds me from behind, one ear on the back of my heart
And softness beneath her nightgown sends my heartbeat to a height
I do not turn, my hands turn backward
But my fingers cannot reach each other, unable to embrace her on my back
Last night, she straddled on me, and we tried and failed to send her home
She then bent down, and I scurried and spurred
And she murmured like humming her watery-country folksong
When the moon dripped dry, we faded out into forgetting this moment
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　August 27, 2008

　　　晨别曲

送走了孩子， 我站在走廊上
车啸、树影与灯火对比着我的记忆
北方的天开始漏光，射穿一缕缕彩云
那深处是我的故乡，这个时刻景象应该不同

妻子见我发愣，似乎看见一种冷
走过来，从身后抱着我，耳朵贴着我的后心
睡衣下有一种柔软，令我心跳突然剧烈
我不敢转头，双手后弯，却无法合围

昨夜，她骑着我，我们一起奔腾也没能带她回到老家
然后她俯下身，让我反复催促，似乎
她需要长亭短亭的节奏，配合她江南小调般的呢喃
当月牙滴干，我们入梦，就是为了忘记此刻
　　　　　　　　　　　2008年8月27日

Zhu Zhu and Chen Zi-ang

Zhuzhu and Chen Ziang

　　　On the Staircase
　　　　　　　by Zhu Zhu　tr. Fan Jinghua
Now, too many men are on the staircase to be counted.
Go upstairs, but Chopin is already in the dark.
Go downstairs is to die lonely in the crowd.
　　　　　　　　　　　　1991

　　楼梯上
　　　　　　　朱朱
此刻楼梯上的男人数不胜数
上楼，黑暗中已有肖邦。
下楼，在人群中孤寂地死亡。
　　　　　　　　1991

　　There has been a time when every national literature has to face some “turns and crossroads,” and people will arrive at them at different times. When a majority of them reach here, the turns or crossroads do not present problems any longer, therefore it is always the loners who feel the deepest uncertainty and anxiety. However, these loners, perceptively keen and powerful as they are, may not write out the most accomplished or monumental works.
　　Contemporary Chinese poetry has faced many of this turns along its zigzagging course. Some poets, however, are not involved into the superficial debates over which turn to take but engaged into a kind of self-reflection. Essentially, before enough accumulation of texts, no debates about how to write can be substantial.
　　Zhu Zhu seems to maintain the status of a loner in writing poetry. This poem was written in 1991, when the two schools of “Academic poetry” and “Folk poetry (grassroot, unofficial)” were emerging to draw their lines. This gives this poem some added significance.
　　This poem was an obvious response to an early Tang poet Chen Zi-ang’s famous “Climbing Youzhou Terrace,” and the terrace becomes Zhu Zhu’s staircase. As a scholar and poet, Chen was intelligent, perceptive and insightful, and as a politician, Chen was imprisoned for being very critical of the Empress Wu Zetian. Chen’s overly famous poem reads:

　　　　　《登幽州台歌》
　　　　　　　　　[唐]陈子昂
　　　　　前不见古人，
　　　　　后不见来者，
　　　　　念天地之悠悠，
　　　　　独怆然而涕下。

Calligraphic work of the poem in Chen's museum in Chengdu, Suchuan

　　　　　　Climbing Youzhou Terrace
　　　　　　　　　　　　Chen Zi-ang (661-702 Tang Dynasty)
　　　　　No one to resort to from the past,
　　　　　No one to expect in the future.
　　　　　Thinking of the infinity of heaven and earth,
　　　　　I, alone, shed my tears of despair.


　　　　　　　　Chen Zi-ang (661-702) early Tang dynasty poet

　　Chen Zi-ang might not see himself as Atlas who held the earth on his back, but his despair was sincere and genuine. For the latecomers, the miseries of those forerunners may appear to be too self-inflicted, for history would go on all the same without the “sentimentality.” For us to really appreciate the sentiments, we have to first of all start by acknowledge the authenticity of the feelings, no matter how fragile they might appear.
　　What Zhu Zhu sees as his despair is not because no one can lead the way but because too many people to be lead. Those men become themselves (here, men should be understood as manly or masculine beings) by climbing to the staircase and keeping apart from the crowd, but they are still a bunch of strayers, like those “superfluous men” in the Russian literary history. They are too many to be counted as individuals.
　　The speaker in the poem is faced with two options. He can either follow the trodden way of the past masters to be effaced in the darkness or go downstairs to be a lonely sage or enlightener.

　　任何一个民族的文学总会在其发展过程中面临各种转弯，而到达这些弯口的人则总有先后。当大部分人到了的时候，那个转弯就已经不再是迷茫之地了；因此，往往是独自行走的人才能深切感受到这种迷茫的绝望。可是，无论这样的人感受多么深刻强烈，他们往往并不可能写出伟大作品；毕竟，他们还没有那个气候。
　　中国当代诗歌的发展，可以说是一直都是在九曲回肠的路上。有些诗人并没有参与到各种几乎是鸡毛蒜皮的争论之中，而是独立独行的观察、写作。说实在的，在没有足够积累形成一个大气候之前，很多争论只能是皮毛。
　　在当代中国诗坛，朱朱可说是尽量保持着一种独行者的姿态，既不招摇也不不招摇。这首小诗写于1991年，当时正是学院派风格与民间风格的两种写作之间的分野开始显露的时候，这使得这首诗具有某种很特别的意味。
　　这首诗可读作是当代诗人对于古典诗歌地位和传统的一种回应，在此，朱朱回应了初唐诗人陈子昂。作为一个学者和诗人，陈子昂是很有洞察力和感受力的，作为一个政治人物，他因为坚决批判中国历史的唯一女皇帝武则天而遭受牢狱之灾。他的《登幽州台歌》成为了朱朱的楼梯。
　　陈子昂眼中所见的是无人，也就是无能人，没有古代的人可以给予启示，也看不出将来有谁能够承担，因此陈子昂只能绝望，这其中当然并不是说自己是那个背负着地球的Atlas，因此我们说他只能眼看着悠悠的天地岌岌可危。当然，时过境迁，历史离开谁都不会不前，因此一个人的深痛，有时候在后来者看来，实在是一种杞人忧天。我们能够做的不过就是，尊重那种感受的真实。
　　朱朱这首诗中看到的不是无人，而是人太多了，太多的迷茫者，太多本质上还是平庸的俗人。他看到的绝望不是无人领头，而是太多的人无法被领去。楼梯上的数不胜数的汉子们（这里的男人的意思便是指这些人也算是汉子了），似乎已经脱离了楼下的人群，然而他们还是迷途者，犹如俄国文学史上的一帮“多余人”。这个说话人却并不融入这些人。汉语中的“数不胜数”说的是数不完，其实也暗示着一眼看去太多了，我已经不愿尽数了，因此我的翻译是too many to be counted太多了，都可以不算数了。也就是说，实际上，这里的数不胜数应该是指“多到不具有个体意义了”，这就是所谓的大多数的意味。
　　楼上的黑暗已经被占有，也就是说被已死者占有，被“盖棺定论”的前辈大师占有了，那么后来者即使想“更上一层楼”也不可能在黑暗中被看见。这便是影响的焦虑。下楼呢，那是一帮无知者，甚至还不如已经爬到楼梯上的伪觉悟者。这个说话人的绝望是彻底的，要么进入故去的大师们的行列从而消失于黑暗，要么到底层去寂寞的死去。

Fan Jinghua: Things Come to Pass

　　Things Come to Pass

At the height of summer, fruits are little buddhas
Too early to pick up, the scent
Richer than faint, but we cannot taste the mellowness yet
So many people have passed by, like a bus of passengers
Returning or leaving home, happiness hidden behind eyelids
Doesn’t this bring enough

All those possibles remain possible
Because they have never been spoken out
And the necessity of speaking sinks
As night falls, door and eyes will close
Mouths will open as they feel natural
And breathing follows its own rhythm

My ignorant hands dip into the water of horror
As if they are gripping a slippery wet vine on a cliff
However hard I try, I cannot climb up to a platform
The bustling steps give me a satisfying solitude
Even in imagination my memory has already stirred
A warm sense of faint pain and yearning
　　　　　　　　　　August 26-27, 2008


　　过往的事

盛夏，果子大腹便便
摘下来尚嫌早些
味道有了，只是我们还不能品尝到醇厚
路过的那么多人，像一车乘客
归家或远行，人人的眼中暗藏着幸福
这，还不够令我欣喜么

那么多可能之所以仍然可能
就是因为没有说出
而无需再说了
入夜之后，门与眼睛就会关上
嘴微微张开
呼吸按自然的节奏

我的手在无知中插进一种恐慌之水
像抓着悬崖上一根湿滑的滕条
使多大的劲也不能爬上去
听着纷沓的足音，我孤独得心满意足
记忆甚至在想象之中就已经隐隐地
泛起了疼痛与渴望的感觉
　　　　　　　　　　2008年8月27

Zheng Danyi: Another Autumn

　　Another Autumn
　　　　　　　by Zheng Danyi 　tr. Fan Jinghua
I am picturing you in the last autumn
A lone goose crossing oceans to an even distant autumn

The mountains over there are golden
When one leaf falls, it will bring two more
I have also pictured
How you wore your clothes. When one wore out
You replaced with another

I have sensed your coming
For the wind on that side has also cooled down this side
Like my hands
Which held at different times stones and fire

Like leaves falling down from above your head
Frail in the wind
Circling and whirling defiantly against the world

Like this bowl we are sharing now
You may not know, my star
Intermixed with other stars
Also illuminates your way to a distant chapter

Alas, one year resembles another year
On day adds to another day
Fate is but a parcel, wrapped up
To be unwrapped! And you
Are simply a treasure inside
You, a parcel of mystery, and I try to….

　　另一个秋天
　　　　　　　　郑单衣
我猜想你去秋的情形
孤雁过重阳　飞往更远的秋天

那面的山野金黄
一片落叶　带来两片
我也猜到了你
去秋的衣裳　一件旧了
再换上一件

我感到你会来
那边的风也吹冷了这一边
就像我的手
握过不同的石头与火焰

就像你头上的落叶飞舞
弱不禁风
却偏偏和这个世界周旋

就像现在　我们分享的这支碗
你不知晓我的星辰
混在其它的星辰里
也照见了你　奔赴遥远的篇章

唉　一年相似于一年
一天　又添进另一天
命运只是个包裹　装好
又拆散！　而你
只是其中一件珍品
包着个谜　让我猜……

　　There is a kind of unique and unimitatable lyricism in Zheng Danyi’s poetry, which is both warm and melancholic. He writes with a mature style almost at the beginning of his writing career and it appears to me that there are very few who could write in such a style and voice. It can be said that he has never extricated himself from the mesmerizing effects of a rather sustained autumnal triste in Chinese tradition. His poetry almost always reminds of pieces in minor such as Tchaikovsky’s Chanson Triste, delightful to the ears, exquisite to the eyes and lingering to the taste. Or, if poetry is a better comparison, Constantine Cavafy comes to mind, whose elegiac, sensual and classical poems echoes in the hearts. Zheng is essential a romantic classist in contemporary poets, perhaps a last one. One interesting note. Zheng is a Sichuan native, and it seems that he finds Sichuan dialect especially effective to render his voice, and every time he gives a reading, he would read in his dialect, at least one poem, usually “Dedication” the titular piece of the subsection “Wings of Summer” or “This Poem is for You” the last piece from his most popular collection Wings of Summer.

　Zheng (right) and his translator Luo (left) in a reading on August 28, 2005
　　　郑单衣（右）和他的翻译者罗辉（左）在朗诵会上（2005年8月28日摄）

　　郑单衣的诗读来令人保持一种低缓的呼吸，令人沉潜其中。这应该归功于他催眠般的语言美感而非诗中的意思。他的诗有一种独特的无法模仿的抒情性，既温暖又忧伤。可以说，他从写作之初，就已经进入了这种成熟的风格，而且有着经年不衰的品质。这种风格和声音是当代中国诗歌中绝无仅有的，我愿意说，他是一个传承了中国古典诗词中的浪漫主义素质的最后一个当代诗人。他的诗歌总是令我想到一些小调的音乐篇目，例如柴可夫斯基的《忧郁之歌》(无词歌)，听来悦耳，意象爽目，余味袅袅；或者，既然是谈诗歌，要找一个诗人来对照，那么我会想到希腊诗人卡瓦菲。他们都有着一种挽歌式的、感官的、古典的回声。郑单衣是四川人，因此似乎觉得四川话最能体现他的声音效果。他每次诵读诗歌的时候，都会起码用四川话诵读一首，尤其是那首《献诗》或《此诗送给你》，前者是他最流行的诗集《夏天的翅膀》中同题部分的第一首，后者是最后一首。

About the poet:
　　ZHENG Danyi (b. 1963) graduated from Southwest China Normal University in Chongqing in 1983 where he led a poetry society. He published poems when in university and self-published some chapbooks. His major collection of poetry Wings of Summer was published bilingual (translated into English by LUO Hui) in 2003 after he settled in Hong Kong.

Fan Jinghua: Caught on the Spot

　　　Caught on the Spot

The fuse releases its twist of heat, setting you off,
But fire is distilled within you and it is what you have.
What cannot be held tight connects you and me, so nothing grows
When the unsounded space between us becomes temporal.
　　　　　　　　　　　August 25-26, 2008

　　　抓着了

引信以最大的速度松开热量，将你发送，
而火在你内部蒸馏，正是你自己拥有的。
不可绷紧的导线将你们穿起来，于是
当你们之间有了时间，就什么也不会长了。
　　　　　　　　　　2008年8月26日

自释一下：
　　甚至我自己也无法将原文全部弄成中文，the twist of heat是“热量的扭结”，可以理解为引信的外部特征，也可以说是它的内涵，犹如热肠纠结；set off是“点着、点火”，自然也是“送上路”。What cannot be held tight是“那不能被抓紧的”，也可以是“那不能绷紧的”，这要看如何连接宾语，nothing grows变成了中文的“什么也不会长了”是最满足的，这里的“长”刚好是一个多音字。the unsounded space中的unsounded在英文中也是多义词，一层是“深度未经探测的”，一层是“不发声的”。temporal 可以是“时间性的”也是“世俗的”，中文用无垠有了时间也算差强人意了。
　　中英文还有一个不同在于，英文中的是you and me你我以及us我们，在中文中都变成了你们。这个说话的“我”站到了你我所构成的我们之外。这是的最后一行的“什么也不会长了”可能是一个警告、一个担心也可能是一种幸灾乐祸。
　　原本写成中文时候的标题是“抓个正着”，这比较符合英文的意思，改成了“抓着了”，倒有了一个意想不到的效果，就是“着了”可以表示“着火了”的意思。

Fan Jinghua: The Only Garden

　　　　The Only Garden
The only garden exists for the passers-by, never
Belongs. Here, no one’s ever seen anyone else.
Self is a pair of moving eyes, in which the images
Of sound, color and wind conceive themselves.
Red canna petals iced with snowflakes,
Plum flowers, greenish white, fluttering like butterflies,
Wreathing the green abdomen of a big katydid
That shines like a woman in late pregnancy.

The one-armed dusk with the hand in its trouser pocket,
The finial iron fences with rusty bars.
I have circled the garden three times, and upon my reaching
A picket, all the tiny mouths in the section clam up.
There is a statuette under a tree that watches so intently
How a snake shed its skin and emits dim light of a brook
That when I come near, it is startled and freezes into stone,
A slender crescent of tongue grown between its lips.

The buildings are vampire’s teeth into the night sky,
And my finger points at it, like a glass cutter rolls around,
Enclosing so many different constellations in one irregular circle.
My finger bends and spring, flipping at those canine towers,
And a piece of paper wobbles down, dotted with stars.
She sits under a walnut tree, as if in the tent of a quilt,
Reading with a flashlight The Little Red Riding Hood,
She, an orphan, among the guarding ghosts of her grandmas.
　　　　　　　　　　　　August 24, 2008


　　惟一的花园

这惟一的花园只是存在，决不属于
走过的人看不到任何人，包括自己
我，是一双运动的眼睛
声、色与风在里面融成景象
美人蕉的花瓣沾着雪粒
李子花白得泛绿，蝴蝶一样闪动
纺织娘翠绿的肚子被遮掩了一半
像一个足月的孕妇

黄昏的独臂插进了裤兜
铁栅栏都锈蚀了，插销无法打开
我围着它走了一圈又一圈
所到之处，小嘴巴都立即闭上
有一只小雕像看着一条蛇
蜕皮，那小溪的光令它忘我
当我的脚步近了，它瞬间凝固
双唇间还垫着一弯月牙儿的舌头

四周的房子犬牙交错地咬着夜空
我伸出食指在天上划玻璃
没有任何已知的围墙能够这样
将不同的星座圈在一起
然后我轻弹几个柱子似的塔楼
一块天空就像纸一般飘下来
一个孤儿，在核桃树的帐篷下
读小红帽的故事，她外婆的亡魂在空中踱步
　　　　　　　2008年8月24-25日

Wang Shasha: No Hold

　　No Hold
　　　　　　by Xiao Maxian　　tr. Fan Jinghua
Like a huge flamingo
sluggishly….
The distant horizon motionless,
trees and me
mute. During my walk
the setting sun swoops down, suddenly,
into my heart.
　　　　　　　August 17, 2008


　　无执
　　　　　小玛仙

像一只巨大的火鸟
缓缓地……
远处的地平线不动声色
沉默的树
和我。散步时
夕阳扑下来，一头扑进我的
心中
　　　　　　2008年8月17日

　　Okay, this is just a lovely small poem, which does not have to be heavy with meaning. I love this piece, especially for the dynamics between motion and stillness as well as between intention and non-intention. The poem itself is quite simple and clear; it is about the setting sun. The setting sun here means warmth, and therefore it makes the impending night warm. It is this warmth that makes the motionlessness of distant horizon and the muteness of “trees and me” imply a certain fulfillment, as if they are waiting for an unannounced fall of something. In this apparent unintentional waiting, the sun swoops headlong. And now we know that the slowness of the sun-bird is actually searching for a place.
　　P.S. What if this poem is about a man or a love?
　　这首诗并没有多么沉重的意义，就是一首可爱的小诗。我喜欢这首诗中的动与静以及有心与无心之间看似随意的关系。这首诗很简单明了，写夕阳落下；但是这里的夕阳是温暖的，于是也就是夜晚会温暖。这使得前面的“一动不动”以及“沉默”具有了一种满足感，似乎是在期待某种突然降临。于是，似无意似有意之中，夕阳扑了下来，有方向地扑进了我的心里。再回头，那缓慢的火鸟（夕阳）简直就是在寻找了。
　　附加一句：如果这首诗写的是人或者感情呢？

Hanxin: A Dog that Kissed Me

　　A Dog That Kissed Me
　　　　　　　　Hanxin (1968-)　tr. Fan Jinghua
It scampered up, its breaths audible,
Paws on my shoulder, licking me
Once and again,
Soft, warm, and a little sour.

So conscientious! Without fences or thorns,
The road in the body was broad and bright,
Free to come and free to go.
This was much more gratifying
Than love with a man

　　一只吻我的狗
　　　　　　　寒馨

它跑来，呼哧呼哧
趴在我肩上，舔我
一遍又一遍
软软的、暖暖的，微酸

它多认真，没有栅栏、没有刺
身体里的路宽敞、明亮
来去无束
这比同人相恋
舒服很多
　　　　　　　2008年8月23日

　　"Kiss" in the title indicates that the speaker is comparing the dog with men, and therefore the acts of the dog shall be understood along with the comparison. The first stanza is very detailed, going slowly, just as the phrase "over and over" tries to represent. The first stanza, then, is a long and patient foreplay. However, a sense of proportion underlies beauty, and in this poem the foreplay appears to be a little too long and it expects a heightened climax. But, this poem is essentially anticlimactic, for it is not about the heightened sensation of love but about the subsiding "comfort" (one of the literal meanings of 舒服 in the last line).
　　"Conscientious" may not be a satisfying translation, as the original phrase 认真 has multiple means from dutiful, dedication and diligent to earnest and taking to heart. The contrast is that the dog is a better partner than a man, at least. The reason is implied in the following phrases of "no fences, no thorns," and the consequence (?) is the broad and bright road in the body, without any 束restraint. The 束 here is also very slippery, and the etymological meaning evokes the image of (binding into) a bundle, but it may mean 拘束trammel, 管束control, 约束bond and commitment.
　　As the poem does not use punctuations at the end of lines, and the three lines in the second stanza do not necessarily read the way I have explicated. An alternative translation may be:
　　　　It is so conscientious, no fences, no thorns
　　　　The road in the body broad and bright
　　　　No restraint for coming and going
　　The climax appears to be when men are brought into the play, but it is the absence of men that the comparison is made. The comparison between a man (or men) and a dog needs further explication. In Chinese, it is the most derogatory insult to compare a man to a beast (more derogatory than calling a policeman a pig in English). Therefore, the animal pleasure of sex is never a morally justifiable enjoyment. The phrase 舒服 (comfortable) implies that the pleasure comes not from the fulfilling gratification of orgasm but from a kind of infiltrating interfusion which may be better understood in terms of subsiding phase.
　　However, if the pursuit of orgasm is not self-justified, my interpretation can only be taken as a metaphor. That is, this poem is not a metaphor about sexual relation between men and women in a society, but should be interpreted literally. We may simple say that this is a poem about the appreciation of the love from a pet. It is about the relation between human beings and the animals, and the pets may provide more ready “comfort” than human beings do.

　　这首诗的第一节写得很具体，就是狗舔自己的感觉，用了吻，自然不仅仅是一种喜欢的意思，还是一种拟人，于是狗就已经在行为上被视为人了。那么，这一切动作可以理解为一种爱的行为，更进一步，是前戏一般的意味。然而，美好事物的一个关键是分寸感或者比例，而这首诗的铺垫似乎有点多了。铺垫越多也许对于高潮的期待越高，而这首诗其实有点反高潮。因此，我想第一节直接简化为：它跑来，舔我，温软、微酸。也许这样就够了。之所以保持软软的、暖暖的意思，是因为微酸这个意思值得保留。实际上，舒服的感觉其实足够性感了，而且是高潮之后的。
　　第二节用“认真”来衡量一只狗的吻，说明狗的投入（实际上也暗暗指责人却无法达到），接着说其原因（没有栅栏、刺），又说投入的结果（身体的路宽敞明亮，也就是说这个我被打开了，而且幸福）。当然，这首诗并没有在行末用标点符号，因此这里的原因和结果只能是我的阐释，例如可以换一种翻译法。
　　这首诗的翻译难度不仅仅来自于语法层面，还来自于语义层面。认真，在汉语中不仅仅是conscientious 用心，而且可能是dutiful 尽心、dedicated 专心、diligent 细心、用功、勤勉、earnest 心诚、take to heart 当真，等。而同样，下面的那个来去无束的“束”字，词源意义具有很强的意象性，指（捆成）一束，但是此刻它可以是拘束、管束、约束等词组的意思。
　　这首诗的高潮在于将“与人相恋”带了进来，起到一种可以期待的震惊效果。但是由于“人”是作为一种缺席而被带入这首诗的，因此，这一震惊其实是高潮之后的反高潮效果。注意这里的人是与动物对比，这反而就暗示了人不如兽了，中文最侮辱人的话莫过于“禽兽不如”，如果我们将这个人视为一个男人，那么也可以说男人甚至不如畜牲。
　　如此说来，这里的动物性高潮，也就是纯粹的肉体行为，也就被否认了的。舒服这个词的性感在于它确实可以说是高潮之后的美好感受，其愉悦感指向一种渗透式的交融而非一种填充式的满足。正因为对于肉体享受不能自我正当化，因此我的读解反而只能在隐喻意义上理解。这就是说，当我从性的角度来解读这首诗的时候，当我将这首诗阐释为社会中男人与女人之间的性关系时，性实际上应该是一种隐喻。所以，还是要回到这首诗的字面意义本身，亦即，这是一首有关宠物的诗，说的是我们对于小动物的爱的欣喜；这种关系远比人与人的关系更具有安慰性。

About the poet:
Hanxin, pen name of Dong Mei, is a contemporary woman poet who was born in 1968 in Lanzhou, Gansu and now resides in Shandong. She has published Three Simple Hearts (co-authored) and Rambling Slowness.

寒馨，原名董梅，1968年生于甘肃兰州，现居山东；曾出版诗集《三素心》（三人合集）、《漫无目的的慢》。

Fan Jinghua: Love and Poetry

　　　Love and Poetry

I allow myself to write no more than one poem in one day
So I write two versions
The first is out of loneliness
The second into it again

I remember an MSN chat with a friend
Till the darkest time before dawn
When asked to write about making love
I wrote: “Go　In 　to love you/ Come 　Out 　to love me”

Loneliness is the love and poetry I make
　　　　　　　　　August 23, 2008


　　　爱与诗

我只容许自己一天最多写一首诗
于是我经常会写两遍
第一遍出于孤独
第二遍再进去

记得和一个朋友聊天到最黑暗的时候
她问，你如何用诗句摹写爱
我打出两行：
“进　去　爱你/ 出　来　爱我”

孤独是我做出来的爱与诗
　　　　　　　2008年8月23日

Yu Xiang: Therefore You Love Me

　　　　　Therefore You Love Me
　　　　　　　　　　　(For You)
　　　　　　　　　　　　　by YU Xiang　tr. Fan Jinghua
　　Midnight. You are asleep, but I am in front of the PC monitor and type out these words.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　For the whole year, you saw snowflakes sneak through the window while the fireplace was accumulating coldness.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　You walked through the garden of my childhood, and even when bare-footed you could hear ants crying out. There was not a stir of wind.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　Perhaps you write, and you'd best write poetic fictions and have no faith in governance or religions or the such. You'd rather not name anything, and you refuse to believe in love.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　One day, you thought of your childhood in Horse-Raising Island, and the waves washed the body of your uncle and the wreck of a fishing boat toward the cliff, repeatedly. The sound would haunt your dreams in the form of knocks on your door, but at that time you and your playmates were engaged with a game called “capturing the greasy.”
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　Dreams made your body fluid run wide and your mind free, while the clock remained mute, remaining the same as before you fell asleep.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　You watched Trainspotting over and over, and you became addicted to drugs, and chairmanship, as they were equally despotic.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　At night, you sipped tea in sorrow, and watched the powdered tea-leaves with S. You did not turn on the lamp.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　You walked below streetlamps, and you walked in the sunlight; you didn't see your own shadow.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　We used to bump into each other, as we lived very close, but the days when we were unacquainted were longer than a snake.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　Upon turning thirty, you no longer viewed the happenings in the past as stars in the night sky. Instead, they had every reason to traverse any field the way crabs cross Black-Sand Beaches, and old love drew out your broken heart. Mom said you should get married.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　You should get married. Aha! You drew lots to make the decision to fall in love.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　My love rests with you.
　　Therefore, you love me.

　　Your walk is feebly slow, because you are old. Therefore you love me.

　　And I say: on account of all this, come to me.

　　from Yang Siping ed. Current Chinese Poetry tr. Denis Mair et al
　　　　　　Shanghai: Shanghai Literary and Arts Press, 2008.
选自 杨四平 主编《中国当代诗歌》梅丹理 等翻译(上海文艺版 2008)



　　　　所以你爱我
　　　　　　　　(for you )
　　　　　　　　　　　　　宇向

　　深夜12点，你已睡去，而我还在电脑前，敲下这些字句。
　　所以你爱我。

　　一整年，你看到雪穿过窗缝，炉火也积聚着冷。
　　所以你爱我。

　　你步行穿过我少年的花园，即便赤脚，也能听到蚂蚁的尖叫。而周围没有一丝风。
　　所以你爱我。

　　也许你写作，最好写诗一样的小说，不相信宗教，不相信政府……不去具体命名任何事物。不相信爱情。
　　所以你爱我。

　　一天，你想起儿时在养马岛，海潮将叔父的尸体和一条渔船的残骸一遍一遍冲向海崖，后来，那声响经常在你噩梦中充当一种敲门的方式，而当时，你正在和小伙伴们玩一种叫做“拔油油”的游戏。
　　所以你爱我。

　　梦境使体液宽广、思想得以自由，惟有时钟同入睡前一样，沉默不语。
　　所以你爱我。

　　你不停地看《猜火车》，迷上了毒品和主席。他们同样霸权。
　　所以你爱我。

　　夜晚，你在伤心中饮茶，并和S一起观察了一会儿茶叶末子，当时没有点灯。
　　所以你爱我。

　　你在某处街灯下行走，白天在阳光下行走，都没有见到自己的影子。
　　所以你爱我。

　　我们曾经面对面，住得很近，不相识的日子却蛇一般漫长。
　　所以你爱我。

　　30岁以后，你看到往事已不再是夜空中的星星，它们有理由像螃蟹一样横行于黑沙滩，就掏出被旧恋情伤害的心。妈妈说，该成亲了。
　　所以你爱我。

　　该成亲了。呵呵，你以抓阄的方式爱上了我。
　　所以你爱我。

　　我的爱取决于你。
　　所以你爱我。

　　你走路很慢，因为你老了，所以你爱我。

　　我说：那么，来吧。


About the poet:
　　YU Xiang is one of the key figures among the Post-70s poets, currently living in Jinan, Shandong Province. After years of engagement with contemporary art and music, she became devoted to writing around 2000. Her awards include the 11th Rou Gang Poetry Prize (2002), top ten women poets in China (2004) and the First Yu Long Poetry Prize (2006).
　　宇向，诗人、作家。"70后"重要诗人。现居山东济南。参与中国当代艺术、地下音乐、先锋诗歌等活动多年之后，2000年左右开始写作，2002年获"柔刚诗歌奖"；2004年被评为中国当代"最受读者喜爱的10位女诗人"之一；2006年获首届"宇龙诗歌奖"。

Fan Jinghua: Loneliness

　　Loneliness
The wall of pinup eyes encroaches, outflanks,
A felled forest of arms
Shrouded with impenetrable invisibility.

He shields his head with a jersey—

The door leafs cannot grip properly behind him.
But the opening has allowed him to pass,
And the wall stops and crumbles before the cave.

He walks toward a huge emptiness.
　　　　　　August 23, 2008


　　孤独

无数只眼睛的张贴画，墙似地
包抄、逼近，伐倒的手臂森林
覆盖着无法戳通的透明。

他用厚厚的运动衫蒙着头——

门扇在他身后无法咬合。
缝隙容他只身穿过，
但将那面弧形的墙堵在洞穴前。

他走去了，向着一片巨大的空。
　　　　　　2008年8月23日

Fan Jinghua: Unnamable

　　Unnamable

Call it a crescent
When it tickles the pond

Call it a sail without a boat
When it dwindles to the distance

Call it a fish without scales
When it vanishes

Call it a wingless bird, hiding outside
When its giggles are not coy

Call it a white-shelled egg
When silence nestles to silence

Call it that light when it is in your arms
Call it this darkness when it is far away
　　　　　　　　　August 22, 2008

　无以命名

池水痒痒的时候
它是一只月牙儿

看它越来越远
称之为无船的帆

当它突然消失
就是不长鳞的鱼

外面传来咯咯的笑声
那是躲避目光的无翼之鸟

静寂依偎着静寂
一只白壳的蛋更加沉默

拥在怀中，它是那种光
它在远处便是这种黑暗
　　　　　　2008年8月22日

Fan Jinghua: Imagine a Trip

　　Imagine a Trip

Nine hours on a train is just too long for one
And you may use an encounter pulsated with tense heartbeat
So that when you get off
Your bones may be shaken firmer into their notches

Of course you can bring a book on board
But that should make a good prop, eye-catching
With a big-letter title on a plainly designed dust jacket
A bookmark with ryegrass patterns and a tassel
Will allow you to put away the parody at any time
Like a fake love that will lie across the rails at the terminal

You know some plants flower modestly under regard only
As lovegrass seeds stick to your socks
Let him sigh with an uneasy face and air draught
That fly your beautifully bloomed dandelion
　　　　　　　　　　　August 21, 2008

　　想象一个旅程

九个小时的火车旅程太长了
需要一场有轻微心动的偶遇
那么你在下车时
晃荡一路的骨头便更加坚实地插入原处

当然，你可以拿一本书
但是它必须能够成为道具，显眼的
大字书名，封面设计得简洁
一张带流苏的书签
上面有伪爱情一样的稗子图案
可以随时悬置或延迟那反讽的滥俗情节

有些植物只在注目之下开谦虚的花
一站一站地衰败，在行程的终点就钻入轨下
犹如情人草籽粘在你的袜子上
让他说，那是蒲公英，而且一脸迷茫
　　　　　　　　　2008年8月21日

Sikong Shu: A Riverside Village Note

　　A Riverside Village Note
　　　　　　　　　　Sikong Shu (720-790 Tang Dynasty)
After a day’s fishing, I head for home alone,
Leaving the boat there behind, free.
The moon is falling west over my village,
The best light for a tight sleep.
Night breeze may try to steer my boat away,
But without me, how far can they go
When the reeds grow so thick on the shoal?

《江村即事》
　　　　　[唐]司空曙
钓罢归来不系船，
江村月落正堪眠。
纵然一夜风吹去，
只在芦花浅水边。

Word-by-word annotation

　　江river村village即instant事event
　　　　　[唐]司空曙 Sikong Shu (720-790)

钓 fishing 罢 over 归 return 来 back 不 not 系 fasten 船 boat
江 river 村 village 月 moon 落 fall 正 in the process of 堪 good for 眠 sleep
纵然 even if 一 one 夜 night 风 wind 吹 blow 去 away
只 only 在 in 芦 reed 花 flower 浅 shallow 水 water 边 side

About the poet:
　　Sikong Shu (720-790) was one of the so-call “Dali Ten Talents” of Tang Dali Reign (766-779). This group of ten poets paid special attention to poetic techniques in writing. Most of them were not successful in their bureaucratic official career, and their relatively lower rank compelled them to write a significant proportion of complimentary and responsory poems while their pride might not allow them to be tuft-hunting. Therefore, their best poems were something like this poem in theme and attainment, the result to learn from Wang Wei.
　　As before, my translation is a free verse. The original poem, as can be seen, is a seven-character quatrain, which means that its rhyme scheme is AABA.
　　This poem is noteworthy for its two kinds of scenery, which in Chinese literary criticism are called factual and fictional scenery. The real scene is what the first two lines have described, while the third and last lines represent an imaginary scene. The comparison between the “tos” and “fros” is also unique. The first line writes about coming back to home, and the fourth character 来 means “come,” which implies that fishing is an act of “going out” (into the society). Now, it is time for returning home for a tight sleep. There might be wind when the speaker is sleeping, and takes from him the boat (the vehicle for his living) when he is left behind without any vigilance. The symbolic significance shall not be neglected. The literal meaning of 即事 in the title is the present thing (happening before the eyes), which obviously should include the imaginary happening. Therefore, the poem writes about two kinds of happenings in two different perceptive worlds: the tangible and the visionary. The happening in the visionary world (the wind might try to blow away the boat) is curbed under the control, and this is the control of the poet over the poem too.
　　司空曙是大历十才子之一，这一组诗人比较注重诗歌的技术性。他们大多数仕途不顺。这使得他们一方面要写一些应酬唱和之作，另一方面又不愿意趋炎附势。注重诗歌技术的同时，他们写出了一些小品式的诗歌，如这首，这恐怕得益于他们学习王维的努力。
这首诗值得注意的是其中的两种景物描写，这在传统中国文学批评中成为实景和虚景。前两行实写江村之景，而后两行则是想象的景物。这两个景物之中的一来一去对比很特别，第一行中的“归来”指的是归家，已经暗示“钓”乃是一种出门追求的意味了，而夜风将船再次“吹去”则有些暗示某种难以把控的意思了。本来，诗人似乎显得全无戒心，但他将船留在身后的同时，已经是意识到了自己“睡去”之后可能发生的事，这里的事可以与题目上的即事（present happening）一致地看。
　　标题中的即事显然是要包括后两行中的虚景的，而诗人将这个虚景中可能发生的事还是在预想中按到了实处。虚景与实景对应的是两个感觉世界：幻象的和可触摸的。然而，幻象中发生的事件却最终还是被物理世界所控制了，这也是诗人对于这首诗的控制。

Back-translation into contemporary Chinese:
英文译文的现代汉语回译：

　　　江村记事

钓了一天鱼，我独自回家，
将船留在身后，随它自由。
月亮从我的村子上西沉，
这样的光最合适深睡。
夜晚的微风或许会试图将我的船儿划走，
但是浅滩上的芦苇长得那么厚，
没有我在，它们能够走多远呢？

Fan Jinghua: A Matryoshka Doll

　　　A Matryoshka Doll

Stout and robust, you smile like Buddha, a complacency
Of perpetuum mobile that lasts you for seven lean dynasties since the last fat one.
Now you take off the upper part of your body and air echoes.
You are a labyrinth of thin walls.

The ultimate baby stands at the center of you, and I love her like I am a mute hunchback.
Do I dare to risk a vertigo? Do I dare to turn papery at her sight,
Showing texture but no text, like an unearthed onion
That immolates a skin to protect acid-rich skins.

Concentric nothingnesses swaddle my heart, a bell that never rings.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　August 20, 2008

　　　俄罗斯娃娃

肥硕，旺盛，你笑得像一尊佛，不倒翁似的满足
以无穷动的摇晃令你带着上一个富足朝代的书香度过七个贫瘠的王朝。
如今，你脱掉上半身，空气有了回声。
你，是一座薄墙回环的迷宫。

那最终的孩子站在你身体中央，我像一个丑陋的哑巴驼背那样爱着她。
我是否敢于晕头转向？是否敢在她的眼神中冒险，变成
半透明的信笺，有纹而无字，如大洋葱
焚一层皮，给含满酸汁的肉皮蒙一层防晒膜。

一层层同心的虚无是我心的襁褓，裹着一口永不敲响的钟。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　2008年8月20日

Li-young Lee: If my father were alive...

Li-young Lee: If my father were alive...
李立扬：“如果父亲还在……”


　　　　I Ask My Mother to Sing
　　　　　　　　　　　Li-Young Lee
　　　She begins, and my grandmother joins her.
　　　Mother and daughter sing like young girls.
　　　If my father were alive, he would play
　　　his accordion and sway like a boat.

　　　I’ve never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,
　　　nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch
　　　the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picnickers
　　　running away in the grass.

　　　But I love to hear it sung;
　　　how the waterlilies fill with rain until
　　　they overturn, spilling water into water,
　　　then rock back, and fill with more.

　　　Both women have begun to cry,
　　　But neither stops her song.

　　　　我叫我妈唱歌
　　　　　　　　　　李立扬（1957-）
　　　她就唱了，随后外婆也加入了。
　　　母女俩像小女生似地唱。
　　　如果父亲还在，他就会
　　　拉手风琴，像小船般左摇右晃。

　　　我从没去过北京，没到过颐和园，
　　　也不曾站在那个大石舫上
　　　看昆明湖上开始落雨，野餐的人
　　　从草地上跑开。

　　　但我喜欢从歌声中听到：
　　　荷叶怎样盛接雨水，直到
　　　歪头倾覆、将水倒进水中，
　　　然后弹回，再去接水。

　　　两个女人已开始哭了，
　　　但谁都没停止唱歌。

　　When I saw him for the first time, it was dark and gloomy outside. Several poets in the hall of a hotel, and he, in his usual overcoat, dark grey. Then, he walked to us and greeted one of his acquaintances. among us. That was a poetry conference in Boston. October, the best season, the mountains are an enormous palette.
　　见到他的时候，已经天色晦暗。我们几个人站在下榻宾馆的大堂一侧，闲聊着。那是一个诗歌会议。他走过来，和一位熟人招呼。那是十月，波士顿，最美的季节。
　　Whenever autumn comes, Yeats' lines would rise from nowhere but they must have been lurking all the time: The trees are in their autumn beauty. And the lines flow on: The woodland paths are dry,/ Under the October twilight the water/ Mirrors a still sky. The melancholic implication is irresistable. In Chinese, autumn is a season for sadness and lament, for life is so vulnerable to weather. Autumn makes one feel lonely and reach for others, perhaps because the weather is cooling down.
　　每当这个时候，“层林尽染”，我脑子里总是闪现着叶芝的那句诗：树木身披秋日的美，然后不由自主地会在脑子里继续几行：林中小径干爽，/ 十月黄昏覆盖着水面/ 镜映着一片静止的天。这首诗写的是库尔庄园的叶天鹅。有一种凄清孤绝的冷色之美，然而这冷却又在骨子里上浪漫着。这气氛难以拒绝。秋天，在中文里，是一个悲伤的季节，此刻的生命如此脆弱，难敌风雨。秋，令人感到孤独，欲将触角伸向他人，也许因为天气越来越凉了。
　　He marked his words with a certain kind of casualness. He spoke fluent mandarin, but he said that he could write much. And I looked beyond him, the streetlamps were yellowing up, brightening and dazzling, while the neon lights were still absent-minded.
　　他说着话，带着一种似乎刻意的轻松随意，打着招呼，他说他的汉语已经讲得不错了，不过还不能写。然后，我便又出神了。外面，照明的街灯都已经进入状态，而霓虹灯似乎还有点心不在焉。
　　I had a fair familarity of his poetry, and his life. I read his promotional photos on his books, and talked about them in my classes. And that day he superimposed that image. In my eyes, he entered the autumn too early.
　　我对他的诗已有一定的了解，还有他的身世。我见过他诗集上的照片，我也知道那是一种促销照片，还和学生讲到过这一点；他那天的打扮便是他最典型的风格：深灰色长风衣，浓黑的长发披到衣领，瘦削的轮廓犹如刀刻。在我看来，他过早地进入了秋天。
　　He has a poem entitled "Dreaming of Hair," in which there are such lines as "My love's hair is autumn hair, there/ the sun ripens." He has always been in autumn, and saw no one coming toward and no one waving sad goodbye at him. His autumn is forgetting and also resistence to forget. And yet he feels privileged to live in autumn, for autumn means not continuity but a kind of self-isolation. Here, he has everything to weave a new pattern of history and family, to make meaning. The weaving of familiy memory shows in the poem "Braiding."
　　他写过一首Dreaming of Hair《梦到头发》，有这样的诗句：My love's hair is autumn hair, there/ the sun ripens （我爱人的发是秋天的发，在那儿/ 太阳成熟）。秋天，也许是他的季节；而秋天才是前无古人而无来者的时空，失去了夏天的生机，抵制着冬天的死寂。如果他能够活在丧失和抵制中，他就幸存于自己的此在，他甚至会感到庆幸，因为秋天不是承前启后，而是一种自我隔绝。时空其实是断裂的，一个个时空场景需要一个人编织进历史和家庭史才能具有意义，例如《编辫子》就是家庭记忆的构建。

　　　　　　《编辫子》Braiding

　　　　　　　一
　　　　我俩坐在床上，你
　　　　在我两腿之间，背对着我，头
　　　　稍稍低着，那样我方便给你梳头
　　　　编辫子。我父亲
　　　　也曾这样对我母亲，
　　　　就像我如此对你。
　　　　…… …… （下略10行）
　　　　　　1.
　　　　We two sit on our bed, you
　　　　between my legs, your back to me, your head
　　　　slightly bowed, that I may brush and braid
　　　　your hair. My father
　　　　did this for my mother,
　　　　just as I do for you. ……

　　　　　　　二
　　　　昨夜房间奇冷，
　　　　我梦见我们又在匹兹堡，寒冬
　　　　毫不消退，而我们睡在尼格里71号
　　　　最后一排座位上，在黑暗的早晨去打工。
　　　　我真想我们不曾痛恨过
　　　　我们活过的那些岁月。
　　　　…… …… （下略7行）

　　　　　　2.
　　　　Last night the room was so cold
　　　　I dreamed we were in Pittsburgh again, where winter
　　　　persisted and we fell asleep in the last seat
　　　　of the 71 Negley, dark mornings going to work.
　　　　How I wish we didn't hate those years
　　　　while we lived them.......　

　　　　　　　三
　　　　你的头发长得真长。

　　　　渐渐地，十二月份。

　　　　　　3.
　　　　How long your hair has grown.
　　　　Gradually, December.

　　　　　　　四
　　　　总会有那么一天，
　　　　你我会有人只能想象出这情景：你，
　　　　沐浴之后，盘腿坐在床上，昏昏欲睡，很耐心，
　　　　而我给你编着辫子。

　　　　　　4.
　　　　There will come a day
　　　　one of us will have to imagine this: you,
　　　　after your bath, crosslegged on the bed, sleepy, patient,
　　　　while I braid your hair.

　　　　　　　五
　　　　已然如此的此时，编好的辫子，在时间中
　　　　散开自己，却又必须再被
　　　　编起来，在时间中
　　　　却又抵制时间。于是我
　　　　每天给你编辫子。
　　　　…… ……（下略13行）

　　　　　　5.
　　　　Here, what's made, these braids, unmakes
　　　　itself in time, and must be made
　　　　again, within and against
　　　　time. So I braid
　　　　your hair each day.
　　　　......

　　　　　　　六
　　　　爱人，那么多钟头累积着。不可胜数。
　　　　树木都长高了，有些人走远了，
　　　　一去不返。
　　　　冷湿的日子在周围潜行，毫无动静，
　　　　我们就这样越过一年又一年。

　　　　　　6.
　　　　Love, how the hours accumulate. Uncountable.
　　　　The trees grow tall, some people walk away
　　　　and diminish forever.
　　　　The damp pewter days slip around without warning
　　　　and we cross over one year and one year.

　　Hair is not only a love's token, but also a band of kinship and family love. In Chinese culture, hair is "thread of love" and "thread of sorrows", and therefore "thread of life." Hair is born out of one's mother, and it becomes the memory of mother. Father is absent from the memory of hair, and for a man, his maturing is built on or around two foundations: Father and Mother. Fatherlessness means having nothing to depend on (support), while Motherlessness means having nothing to lean (nestle) against. That is why in Chinese orphanage refers to fatherlessness.
　　头发不仅仅是love’s token定情物或纪念，在这首诗里更是一种亲情的纽带。在中国文化中，头发更是情丝，烦恼丝，因此便是生命。头发是对于母的记忆，在头发的记忆中父亲是缺席的。一个男人的历史中有两个因素，一个是父，一个是母。丧父为失怙，无所仗持，丧母为失恃，无所依偎。虽然从文化心理意义上而言，男人必须借助丧父/弑父才可以独立，但在幼年被剥夺了父亲，便是终生的孤儿。
　　An orphan has to construct a home. The construction is weaving, and as the ancient metaphor suggests, writing is weaving words. Writers weave words to build a home for themselves, and their home is word. The warp of the weaving is time, and the process is called wandering. The precondition and consequence of wandering is fatherlessness, and the ultimate purpose of writing is to find the father.
　　孤儿没有家园。孤儿必须构建一个家，而这种构建就是编织，正如古老的暗喻所暗示，写作就是一种编织。作家通过编织文字为自己建立一个家，他们的家就在文字之中。孤儿的家永远只能存在于自己对于时空的构建和编织之中，而这种编织的经线（骨）却是悬置于时间的。这叫做漂泊。漂泊的前提与结果都是失去父亲。漂泊的意义也就存在于这种无父状态下的对父的追寻或者重构。
　　One day, we happened to sit side by side, and we picked up a small chat. When the phrase of "the life of a bum" went out of my mouth, he fell upon it, saying: "Bum, that is the life I like." I did not go on saying "You had to learn to like it". The differnce between Lee and most of the ABCs lies in that he does not seem to settle himself down in the culture of the States. He does not try to put his family romance into American culture, and instead, he tries to reconstruct his fatherdom in him and the foundational stone is fatherlessness.
　　一日我和他并排坐在巴士上，闲聊，我说到the life of a bum（游荡者的人生），他立即说：我最喜欢的字，bum，我喜欢的生活。我有一句话没有说出口：你不得不学会喜欢它。这是李立扬和绝大部分华裔作家本质的不同：他没有试图在一个异乡文化中重新安家，他没有试图将失夫记忆描绘成一幅家族伪浪漫史。他在自己身上重建父亲，这个父亲就叫丧失。
　　　I’ve never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,
　　　nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch
　　　the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, ......
The comparison is stunningly interesting. The stone boat is real, in Beijing, but the father is not there, only in imagination. Or, the stone is imaginary, in the voice of the mother, while the father is real, in his words. What the poet can do or has done is what can be done by every one. That is, he is a lotus leaf, holding water for a short time and then emptying the water into bigger body of water. Water is time, and in time he uses time to weave the history of his family and father.
　　“我从没去过北京，没到过颐和园，/ 也不曾站在那个大石舫上”，那座大石舫和左摇右晃的父亲构成了一个奇妙的对照，可以说那个石舫是实在的，在北京，而父亲是虚构的，在想象中；也可以说，那个石舫是虚构的，在母亲们的声音中，而父亲是实在的，在自己的文字中。而他自己能够做到的正如所有人一样，犹如荷叶：将水倒进水中。水便是时间。时间中，他自己编着没有父亲的历史。
　　　Another year. He was invited to give a reading in Indiana University at Bloomington. He failed. He wept out and could not do the reading. I heard of that, and thought of his poems, including those mentioned above, and the longer pieace "The City in Which I Love You." The speaker in the poem has seen many cities and met many people, but he finds that they are all strangers, none of whom is the familiar "you," for the "you" comes from memory.
　　　　　Like the sea, I am recommended by my orphaning.
　　　　　Noisy with telegrams not received,
　　　　　quarrelsome with aliases,
　　　　　intricate with misguided journeys,
　　　　　by my expulsions have I come to love you.
　　　又一年，他收邀去印第安纳大学(Bloomington) 朗读，泣不成声，无法完成。我又想到他许多诗篇，包括上面的，还包括那首170多行的The City In Which I Love You （那座让我爱你的城市），想到那个主人公看尽了各个城市、各式人等，都发现他们既不是自己，也没有一个相熟，更不是“你”：
　　　　　犹如大海，我被我的失父状态推荐前来。
　　　　　带着无人领取的电报聒吵，
　　　　　假用化名争论不休，
　　　　　误入太多歧途而难以说清，
　　　　　凭着被驱逐的身份我走近你，爱你。
　　This long poem reminds me of the couple in Sophie's Choice. However, the speaker in this poem eventually confirms that his words are more than real: "And I never believed that the multitude/ of dreams and many words were vain"
　　我想到了《苏菲的选择》中的那对夫妻。但是诗人在最后两行说，在我爱着你的这座城市，“我从来都不相信，无数的/ 梦以及那么多的词句都是枉然”。
　　Yet another year, I met a woman poet, middle aged, saying of him: He is Soooo handsome!
　　又一年，我遇到另一个国家的一个中年女诗人，带着陶醉的口吻说：他英俊得令人难忍！


About the Poet
诗人简介
　　李立扬，世界著名的华裔诗人，1957年出生于印尼雅加达的华人家庭，其曾外祖父是袁世凯，其父亲Lee Kuo Yuan在中国解放前当过毛泽东一年不到的私人医生。新中国成立后，他们全家搬去印尼后，他父亲在那里帮助建立起嘎玛利(Gamaliel )大学。李父在1958年因为见疑于印尼总统苏加诺，成为政治犯，身陷囹圄一年半。1959年，他们全家逃难离开印尼，途径香港、澳门、日本，历时5年，最后在美国安顿下来。
　　李立扬前后在美国就读过匹兹堡大学、亚利桑那大学、和纽约州立大学。他出版了Book of My Nights《我的黑夜之书》（2001年），The City in Which I Love You《那座让我爱你的城市》(1991年)年入选Lamont精选诗集，Rose《玫瑰》（1986）荣获Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award施瓦兹纪念奖，另外还有The Winged Seed: A Remembrance (1995)《带翅膀的种子：追忆》是作者1990年回中国寻根之旅的结果，此书获Before Columbus Foundation基金会颁发的美国图书奖。2008年1月新诗集Behind My Eyes《眼窝后》由诺顿图书出版。

Fan Jinghua: A Doll

　　　A Doll
This doll you send me dangles
On the socket before my desk;
The indicator is her visible heart, always red, when I am at home.
So she hangs, on a silky lace,
Her short stiff limbs pointing to four directions.

The body is a stuffed pancake, deliciously plump,
But no breasts and hips bridged by a wasp waist.
The naked happiness needs no fig leaf,
And in the dark pearl pupils
I see my desire dissolved in her desire for my touch.

Only very occasionally, I’ll look direct into her eyes
And then close mine or shun hers, saying:
Don’t let us recognize the same desire at the same time.
This might be a confession, or a wish.
　　　　　　　　　August 18-9, 2008

　　　玩偶

你送给我的布玩偶，
挂在书桌前的电插座上；
只要我在家，那指示灯就是她的心脏。
她晃荡着，吊着一根蕾丝，
粗短的四肢指向四个方向。

身体如一块松饼，饱满得勾引食欲，
没有乳房、没有翘臀，自然也就没有曲桥似的细腰。
赤裸的幸福不需要无花果的叶子，
而我总在她黑珍珠似的眼睛里
看到我的欲望在她渴求抚摸的炯炯欲望中如雾起雾消。

只有很偶尔的时候，我才在凝视她的眼睛之后
闭眼或者扭头，默念：
不要让我们在对视中认出相同的欲望。
而这可能是忏悔，也可能是祈愿。
　　　　　　　　2008年8月19日

Fan Jinghua: Soulmate

　　　　Soulmate

You are almost half a day’s away,
And for a whole morning I brew the mood
To visit you, as if picking up a stray path.
In twilight I see your lone figure
Standing in a crossroad near your home, waiting.

We do not hug, not even holding hands,
As if neighbors greet over a hedge.
You say the glutinous porridge is just right,
And bats fly low, while we are lower,
Drinking marguerite tea, words sinking in our cups.

By midnight, the stars are getting cold, and we
Turn in, facing each other from opposite twin beds,
Or on a double bed, digesting the darkness.
From far away, you ask: who are you?
And I ask back, along your voice: who is the “you” of you?

I do not often come to you,
And you receive me as if I were another,
As if I had come from the future or the past.
We know we know each other for many years but not by names,
We know each other’s body warmth but not sex.
　　　　　　　　　　　　August 17, 2008


　　知己
你离我将近半天的距离
我用了一个上午酝酿心情
顶着中午的困倦与烈日
走向你，在苍茫时分远远望见
你在门前的路口等我

我们没有拥抱甚至没有握手
犹如邻居隔着篱笆打招呼
你说稀饭的温度与浓稠刚刚合适
而蝙蝠低飞，我们更低
喝菊花茶，话在杯子里下沉

入夜，星冷了
我们在两张床上相对而眠
或许在一张床上相拥，消化黑夜
很久，你从远处飘来一句：你是谁呢
我沿着你的声音传回一句：你的我是谁呢

我只是极偶尔才拜访你
你像接待另一个人一样接待我
犹如我来自过去或者未来
我们知道我们已认识多年，却没有名字
我们感受彼此的体温，却没有性别
　　　　　　　　　　　2008年8月18日

Li Shangyin: Magistral Judge Du Mu

　　Magistral Judge DU Mu
　　　　　　　　　　　　　Li Shangyin (Tang Dynasty 812 ?-858 ?)
On a tower amid winds and rains, I am touched by your writings;
My wings are short and uneven that I cannot reach your height or the crowd’s.
Who in this world but the one and only Masistral Judge Du is able to
Make a lot out of the hurt at spring and further from the hurt at farewells?

　　　　　杜司勋
　　　　　　　　　　李商隐（约812-约858）
　　高楼风雨感斯文，短翼差池不及群
　　刻意伤春复伤别，人间惟有杜司勋

Word-by-word annotation:

　　　杜DU司勋magistral judge

高high楼building风wind雨rain感be moved斯this文composition
短short翼wings差池not even不no及reach群pair/crowd
刻意emphasize/ on purpose伤hurt春spring复again伤hurt别parting
人间human world惟only有have杜DU司勋sixun- name of an official rank

　　The title of this poem comprises two parts, the surname and the official rank of DU Mu (803-853?), which makes the poem both a dedication and an appraisal. Of course, in the ancient time, there is no email for instant communication and even if the author wanted the dedicatee to learn the poem, most probably it would have to be spread first in the poetic or literati circle (which of course was usually consisted of many officers and officials). The official rank of sixun (si-shuen), according to Zhou Ritual 周礼, is the magistral judge who takes charge of the rewarding land for meritorious services within six communes (under a county).
　　The two greatest Late Tang poets Li Shangyin and Du Mu were praised as the Li-Du Junior, compared with High Tang poets Li Bai and Du Fu. Both pairs of the Li and the Du were close friends, and they wrote to each other. They presented an interesting comparison. Li Shangyin was very passionate, while Du Mu was a proud guy. Du Fu was very affectionate, while Li Bai was very proud. Li Shangyin greatly admired Du Mu and wrote two poems for Du Mu, while Du Mu wrote none for return. DU Fu wrote more poems for Li Bai that Li’s returns.
　　This poem by Li Shangyin deserves attention and praise. Du Mu always complained that his talent was wasted, and he was famous for writing “For ten years I did nothing but dream in Yangzhou / Before I won an insignificant fame in the Green Quarters (brothels).” Li Shangyin wrote this poem to encourage him, and at the same time expressed an ambition that could only share with him. The recognition and the singling out of one person from one’s age are definitely a way to praise and self-praise.
　　The tower (high building) is a traditional image for a noble-minded man with a high aspiration who cannot be understood by ordinary people and therefore feel lonely. Wind and rain usually refers to the turbulence of the time, but here the phrase implies the socio-cultural decadence. The second line is a self-effacing lamentation. The phrase “short wings” stands for the lack of ability. The last word 群 may have two interpretations here. If it means crowd, the line may be read as mockery. It means that I will not be part of the crowd as I lack ability. If the word means a pair, the line may mean that I am no pair to you as I am short-winged. The third line refers to DU Mu’s poetic themes. Since the first line has already pointed to the whole society, the third line not merely summarizes the sentimental themes but generalizes the hurt. That is, Du Mu’s lament is rendered not about personal grievances but about generally-felt grief.
　　Here, I’d like to talk a little more about the word 伤hurt in Chinese. This is a highly culture-loaded concept. We have many phrases carrying the word, such as 伤春 hurt at/by the spring, 伤怀 hurt within the bosom (not 伤心 heart-hurting or 心碎 heart-breaking), 伤感 hurt by feeling something (sentimental) etc. Since the spring is the season for flowers, and the flowers may stand for transient beauty, being hurt at seeing the spring is to be hurt by the spring, and one is reminded of the fleeting life itself. Then, the sickness upon seeing the spring flowers may become internalized into a sickness within the heart, therefore it becomes伤怀a hurt within one’s bosom. The generalization and internalization from the hurt at/by the spring to the hurt within the bosom is important in Chinese culture (and this may also imply to other eastern cultural concepts such as the lamenting on the falling cherry blossom Japanese and han 恨 hate in Korean). The hurt in Chinese appears to be not directly related to the body, although it may compass the possible disembodiment in the imagery of falling flowers, which may further evoke the association of the withering of the beauty of a woman.
　　This hurt reminds me of Sylvia Plath’s line “Your body/ Hurts me as the world hurts God.” In Plath’s poem, the hurt also undergoes the generalizing process from the individual to the whole world, and at the same time, the comparison between me and God heightens the scale and nature of the hurt.

　　此诗标题由两部分组成，一个是杜牧的姓，一个是杜牧的职位。这样的标题可以说是暗示了两种可能，其一是这是一首赠诗，其二是这是一首颂诗。司勋这个职位，按照《周礼》，是“司勋掌六乡赏地之法，以等其功”；按照唐宋行政官制，乡属于县下的一个单位，和如今的乡差不多，因此杜牧的官职还不到一个县令。
　　晚唐小李杜和盛唐李杜的对比很是有趣。杜甫情深，李白才高；李商隐情深，杜牧才高（或者起码他很是自恃才高，而实际上李商隐肯定比杜牧更加多面手）。杜甫送给李白的诗比李白回诗多许多，而李商隐有两首写给杜牧的诗，却不见杜牧有回诗。
　　这首诗的大气和豁达在李商隐的诗中并不多见。杜牧一贯抱怨自己不被重用，还留下著名的“十年一觉扬州梦，赢得青楼薄幸名”这样玩世不恭的句子。李商隐对他很是推崇，当然，任何人对另一个人的推崇必然是一种惺惺惜惺惺的心态。这也是阅读这首诗的一个关键。高楼从来都是孤傲人格的标志，而风雨如晦自然就是对于社会风尚日趋腐败的一个哀叹。因此，这首诗的起句就已经定了一个基调，这是一个令人失望的时代。有人说，李商隐的这句“高楼风雨感斯文”的力度与厚重足以敌得过杜甫的“花近高楼伤客心，万方多难此登临”。此句可说是写实，也可以是象征，说的是晚唐文坛凋零。那么，这里的“感斯文”实际上是就是一种激励与自励，大有要振兴诗坛得靠你我二人的意味。第二句是一个自谦的说法，说的是，我很看重你，但是我只恨自己没你的能力啊；这里的群，可以理解为与你为群，但是如果将群理解为大众，则是一种以退为进的说法或者讥讽了，就是说：本人不才，不能向普罗大众看齐呢。
　　第三行指出了杜牧诗歌的主题，但是由于有了第一行的基调，这里的伤春伤别就不仅仅是个人小悲戚的慨叹，而是普遍感到的悲哀了。这里的伤字是一个特别具有文化意义上的概念。中文中有许多以伤构成的词组，例如伤春、伤怀、伤感。伤春可说是对着春天的花或者因为春天的花而受伤，这种受伤可能是由于看着花儿的旺盛生命是如此短暂，继而想到美人的华年，继而想到人生的欢乐以及人生的功业等等。于是，伤春就上升到了一个总体化的内化的层次，成了伤怀。这一过程对于理解中国甚至东方受汉语文化影响的日本或韩国文化都是很重要的。例如，日本对于花期甚短的樱花的狂热感动，或者韩国“恨”（有点像“恨别鸟惊心”中的恨的意思）的概念。
　　虽说这里的伤并没有直接和身体相联系，但是我们还是可以在伤春所暗示的落花中看出身体衰老颓萎的含义。这令我想到普拉斯的一个名句：你的身体/伤害我，犹如世界伤害上帝。这里同样具有一个普遍化的过程，将具体的你普遍化为整个世界，而我与上帝的对比将这个说话人放到了一个很高的位置上。我们知道，普拉斯在16岁的时候就说自己是一个想成为上帝的女孩子。这里的你却又是说话者面对的自我，因此这种对比简直令人分裂。是否也可以用李商隐的话来说呢：本人不才，无法向芸芸众生看齐。

FAN Jinghua: Man and its Shadow

　　Man and its Shadow

The greatest gyre is invisible
No centrifugal desire is shed
The shadow of a white constellation lies prone in the darkness
No erogenous zones

No apparel, sexless
The naked form is swaddled by freedom
And loses the hardness of silhouettes
They face each other, smell each other but cannot touch

The fissures in their bodies are hinged together by wounds
A tense welcome is written across the two leaves of a door
That opens into a cave and shuts into a wall
Like a sluice gate guarding a dark liquid of happiness

When the first sunrays come rolling forward
The lawn scum is washed toward a fence or a sleeper wall
Birds fly by, guided by an esoteric poetry
And release droppings of fertilizer and seeds

They will grow smells together
For no one will pass by for the rest of the day
There will be nothing to tinge their waiting
Until night falls like a patterned carpet
　　　　　　　　August 14, 2008


　　　人及其影子

那是肉眼看不到的星座在旋转
不再是为了离析欲望
影子被分解出去，均匀地落在黑暗中
没有向心力，也没有动情区

没有衣饰，也没有性别
那纯粹的形状只有自由裹缠着
从而失去了轮廓的硬度
他们面对面，闻着味道，却难以牵手

肉体的缝隙被伤疤钉上铰链
"欢迎"被写在两扇门上
打开成为一个洞穴，夹紧成为一堵墙
有如闸门把守着幽暗的幸福液汁

当黎明的光涌来
草地上的浮渣挤向围墙或者一排树
晨鸟飞过，似乎受到冥冥中的诗意的导航
适时屙下肥料和种籽

整整一个白天，无人经过
惟有它们共同生长着味道
并且漫不经心地等待黑夜
像一张抽象图案的地毯抛下来
　　　　　　　　2008年8月14-15日

Lü Yan: Shade of Phoenix Trees

　　Shade of Phoenix Trees
　　　　　　Lü Yan [Tang Dyansty]

The sun is setting low, autumn wind chill.
You are coming tonight, my familiar, are you not?
The shade of phoenix trees I stand in disappears fast.

　　　　　梧桐影
　　　　　　　　[唐] 吕岩
　　落日斜，秋风冷。
　　今夜故人来不来？
　　教人立尽梧桐影。

Word-by-word annotation in English:

　　　梧桐phoenix tree影shadow
　　　　　　　　　　　[唐] 吕岩
　落falling日sun斜slant秋autumn风wind冷cold
　今夜tonight故人old friend来come不not来come？
　教let人person立stand尽end梧桐phoenix影shadow

Chinese Pinyin pronunication:

　　　梧wu2 桐tong2 影ying3
　　　　　　　　　　　　　[唐] 吕岩
落luo4日ri4斜xie2，秋qiu1风feng 1冷leng3
今jin1夜ye4故gu1人ren2来lai2不bu4来lai2？
教jiao4人ren2立li4尽jin4梧wu2桐tong2影ying3

About the poet:
The biographical notes to the authors in Complete Tang Poetry recorded that Late Tang poet Lv Yan, after failing Xiantong (860-874) Imperial Examination, stayed in the capital Chang’an (Xi’an), drinking. Then he met Zhong Liquan and went to practice Taosim in Zhongnan Mountain, and then he was heard no more. He was one of the Eight Immortals in Chinese folklore, and was revered as one of the five founders of Quanzhen Taoism.
晚唐吕岩即吕洞宾，是民间传说中的一位“神仙”。《全唐诗》小传说他“咸通(公元后860-874年)中举进士不第，游长安酒肆，遇钟离权得道，不知所往。

　　This is an obvious “love” poem, and indeed it has been read as such. The speaker is waiting till the nightfall and the shadow of the trees in which s/he stands dissolves in and into the dark. Still, s/he seems to be hard to drag herself/ himself away. Also, the tone is usually assigned to a female.
　　However, in Chinese cultural tradition, the phoenix tree could usually evoke the sentiment other than romantic love. The foremost allusion would be the phoenix tree in both Book of Poetry and Chuangtse.
　　In The Great Odes of The Book of Poetry, a poem writes:
　　　　　Hark to the phoenix wings astir in the air,
　　　　　Here is their bourne, here is their place of rest,
　　　　　Old and tried officers crowd round the throne
　　　　　to know thy will, now thou art Heaven’s son.

　　　　　Old and tried officers crowd round the throne,
　　　　　Hark to the phoenix-wings at heaven’s gate,
　　　　　Let him appoint such as will keep touch
　　　　　With the folk of his state.

　　　　　Hark to the phoenix’ song
　　　　　O’er the high ridge amid dryandra boughs
　　　　　That face the rising sun,
　　　　　Thick, thick the leaves,
　　　　　So calm serene that song. (Ezra Pound’s translation)
　　In Book of Songs, the phoenix tree is associated with the talented persons not necessarily of noble origin, and the poem has been understood as an ode to King of Zhou for and a call for him to a courteous and appreciative attitude toward the talented.
　　In the passages immediately preceding the famous allegory about the pleasure of fish (How can you know I do not know the pleasure of the fish since you are not the fish?), someone warns the prime minister Hui that Chuangzi is coming to replace him. Hui is greatly concerned, whereupon Chuangzi tells a story. In the south, there is a kind of bird called phoenix, which will not perch on any tree but wu-tong tree, eats nothing but the fruits of bamboo, and drinks nothing but the purest spring water (“Autumn Water”). Wutong tree is therefore rendered as phoenix tree. A Chinese proverb goes: With Wutong trees planted before your gate, you shall expect phoenix to come.
　　The person who is waiting in the shade of phoenix trees may be expecting someone noble-minded, and this can be justified also by the fact that scholars in the ancient when trying to recommend themselves to or ask for recognition from the emperor would adopt the personality and tone of a female. If related to the poet’s failures, the poem may imply the message of hope to be recognized.
　　That is perhaps why in one of most famous modern men of letters and painters Feng Zikai’s (1898-1975) drawing, the waiting figure appears to be a man (a scholar).

　　　　　　　　　　　After Lv Yan by Feng Zikai

　　这是一首一眼看来就是情诗的小令；确实，人们一直如此理解。说话人在夜幕降临的时候，还站在越来越不可见的树荫下等待，无法狠心抽身离开。再说，这首词的口吻也是女性化的。
　　然而，中文传统中的梧桐最初就涉及两个并非情爱的典故：《诗经》和《庄子》。
　　《诗经·大雅》中的《卷阿》篇中有：
　　　　凤凰于飞，翙翙其羽，亦集爰止。蔼蔼王多吉士，维君子使，媚于天子。
　　　　凤凰于飞，翙翙其羽，亦傅于天。蔼蔼王多吉人，维君子命，媚于庶人。
　　　　凤凰鸣矣，于彼高冈。梧桐生矣，于彼朝阳。菶菶萋萋，雍雍喈喈。
通常的理解是这首歌包含着对于周王礼贤下士的歌颂和劝勉。而这里的凤凰自然也就是贤士了。
　　在《庄子》著名的“子非鱼”语言之前，就是惠子担忧自己的地位不保。这是庄子说了一个有关凤凰的寓言。“南方有鸟，其名为鹓雏，发于南海而飞于北海，非梧桐不止，非练实不食，非醴泉不饮”。而民间有一个谚语：门前栽得梧桐树，不怕没有凤凰来。
　　从这两个典故来看，在梧桐树下等人，就不仅仅是等待情人。而这首词中用的是故人，也就是旧相识。该作者科举仕途皆不顺，最终归隐成仙，这种呼求被赏识的心情应该是可以理解的吧。而现代著名文人画家丰子恺根据这个词意所作的画中，那个等待的人的性别即便不是一个男人，也至少是含糊的。

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Feng Zikai's After Lv Yan

FAN Jinghua: Still Objects

　　Still Objects

Here are two bottles, streamlined,
Of the same shape and texture,
Both empty,
And what I need is a silver-coated one
For my heart.
She is one,
And you could have become.
The difference?
She contains the juice of my vision,
And you have veneered yourself with reflection.
Around you I see scattered petals,
In her, drowsy flowers on stems.
The contrast of the sight is spectacular,
And less startling
Than the pattern of things.
　　　　　　August 13, 2008

　　静物
这儿是两只瓶子，流线型，
有着相同的形状和质地，
都是空着的，
而我所需的是一只镀银的，
放在心里。
她是，
而你本可能是。
区别？
她承接着我灵视的液体，
而你涂抹了一层折光。
在你周围，我看到散落的花瓣，
她的身体里，插着几株歪头瞌睡的花朵。
一眼看来，这对比惊人，
而比起物体的排列图
也不算什么。
　　　　　　2008年8月13日

Plath: Mystic

Sylvia Plath Collected Poems

No. 219

　　　Mystic

The air is a mill of hooks---
Questions without answer,
Glittering and drunk as flies
Whose kiss stings unbearably
In the fetid wombs of black air under pines in summer.

I remember
The dead smell of sun on wood cabins,
The stiffness of sails, the long salt winding sheets.
Once one has seen God, what is the remedy?
Once one has been seized up

Without a part left over,
Not a toe, not a finger, and used,
Used utterly, in the sun's conflagrations, the stains
That lengthen from ancient cathedrals
What is the remedy?

The pill of the Communion tablet,
The walking beside still water? Memory?
Or picking up the bright pieces
Of Christ in the faces of rodents,
The tame flower-nibblers, the ones

Whose hopes are so low they are comfortable---
The humpback in his small, washed cottage
Under the spokes of the clematis.
Is there no great love, only tenderness?
Does the sea

Remember the walker upon it?
Meaning leaks from the molecules.
The chimneys of the city breathe, the window sweats,
The children leap in their cots.
The sun blooms, it is a geranium.

The heart has not stopped.
　　　　　　　　　1 February 1963

Chinese Translation of Sylvia Plath's Mystic from her Collected Poems

　　　神秘论者
　　　　　　　希薇娅·普拉斯　　tr. Fan Jinghua
天空是长满钩子的磨车——
没有答案的提问，
闪着光、醉醺醺，像苍蝇；
夏天松柏下的阴浊空气
如腥臭的子宫，它们在里面叮叮啃啃，令人难忍。

我记得
木屋上阳光的死人味，
蓬帆僵硬，卷夹着咸涩的布条。
某人一旦目睹了上帝的尊容，还有什么补救？
一旦被完全没收，

一块部件也不留下，
不剩一只脚趾、一根手指，而是用滥了，
彻底用滥，在太阳的大火下，污渍
从远古的大教堂延伸至今，
还有什么补救？

圣餐牌上的小药丸，
在死水边行走？记忆？
或者面对着啮齿动物
捡起基督闪亮的碎片？——
那些温顺的啃花者、那些家伙

愿望太卑微所以知足常乐——
那位驼背经风历雨的小茅屋，
笼罩于铁线莲的辐条下。
是否只有心软，根本没有伟大的爱？
大海是否

记得那踏过水面的行者？
意义从分子间泄漏。
城市的烟囱喘着气，窗户冒汗，
孩子们在童床上跳跃。
太阳绽放，它是一株天竺葵。

心尚未停滞。
　　　　　　　　　　1963年2月1日

　　I love this poem so much that I used the lines “Does the sea/ Remember the walker upon it” as the signature of my BBS postings. This poem contains most elements of Plath’s repertoire. The catchwords include hook, glitter (bright pieces), the fecund womb-like space with smells, body part(icles) such as toes and fingers, and of course Christian images, etc. These elements are coordinated in the form of a womb filled with bright pieces, but the speaker appears to be a small low creature trying hard to find a place under a much too big dome. This type of creatures includes the flies, the stains in the sun, the rodents, the flower-nibblers, the humpback, and eventually these creatures become vertical (to borrow a word from the poem “I am Vertical”) and pose questions. The vertical becomes increasingly active and engaged and make impact, like “Meaning [that] leaks from the molecules” as we see the change from the walker upon the water, the chimneys in the city, to the children in the cots. Eventually, the sun blooms, therefore it responds to the heart, contrary to the early image of the sun.
　　我特别喜欢这首诗，因此在我的网名个性签名上就用了其中的“大海是否／记得那踏过水面的行者？”。这首诗可以说包含了普拉斯诗歌意象库中的大部分常用意象。它们包括钩子、闪光（明亮的碎片）、散发味道的子宫似的肥沃空间、身体（小）部分如脚趾手指，当然还包括宗教意象。这些因素被协调成为充满明亮碎片的子宫这个图景，但是这首诗的说话者却显示为一个拱顶之下的卑微生灵，努力寻找一个合适的立足点。这些生灵在这首诗中显示为苍蝇、阳光下的污渍、啮齿动物、温顺的啃花者、那位驼背，但是他们最终都会直立起来（她有一首诗的题目就叫“我是直立的”），向穹拱发出问题。这些直立起来的物体越来越显得积极干预，犹如“意义从分子间泄漏”。这个变化过程在于水上的行者、城里的烟囱、小床上跳跃的孩子；而结果便是太阳终于绽开，从而回应了人心。

Fan Jinghua: Of Life and Death

　　　Of Life and Death

Before dawn, I pass by the silent mirror
Behind the bedroom door,
From whose depth a shadow rises.
Come to lead me somewhere? Two blank faces
With the same familiar strangeness,
No surprise.

What flashes through the dark is the contrail
That you dive through the air
Onto the ground where your head blooms,
Petals of echoes sticking on the faces of passers-by.
They will walk on, in the sun, the petals
Peeling off one by one.

Dignity belongs to no one else
Even if you have not taken it along with death.
But to whom can I solicit for verification
Whether you will be still there
Living
In the unfathomable frozen liquid world of the mirror.

I pinch his face, but I do not know
Whose strength I am borrowing to make myself painful.
The light to be turned on will be too much
For my sleepy eyes, and I grope to the washroom
Out of habit, taking out a warm stick
To relieve my inner urgency.

The splash subsides, a shiver runs through
My body like a sudden numbness, and between my fingers
The hard warmth fades fast.
Night resumes its deadness, except the breath
I feel on my nose tip, not as warm
As it might be in the coldest winter.
　　　　　　　　　　　August 12, 2008

　　　生死之间
黎明之前，我经过卧室门后
沉默的镜子，那深处升起
一个影子。为了与我相见？
两张茫然的脸，相同的陌生，
没有吃惊。

闪过黑暗的
是你纵身一跃切开空气时
留在身后的气流。
你的头开了一朵花，花瓣的回音
贴在过路人的脸上。
它们在太阳下一片一片剥落。

尊严不会属于任何别人，
即使你赴死时也没有带上它。
可我又能向谁求证
你是否仍然
生存于
这面镜子无底的凝结了的液体世界中。

我捏了那个人的脸，但我不知道
我借用谁的力令我自己疼痛。
那盏可以扭开的灯
对于半醒的眼睛而言太刺目，
于是我凭着习惯摸索着走进
厕所，掏出一个温暖的小棍子，
缓解我内部的急迫。

随着溅水的声音缓息，一股颤栗
滚过我的身体，犹如突然的麻木，
而我两只手指之间
那坚硬的温暖迅速消退。
夜又重回它的死亡，除了
我鼻尖上的呼吸，
比在最严酷的冬日还缺少温度。
　　　　　　　　　　2008年8月12日

This is a poem I wrote on December 7, 2007 after I heard the news of Prof. Yu Hong's suicide the day before. Prof. Yu's expertise is aesthetics and modern philosophy, teaching Literary Theory in People's University of China in Beijing. After his death, there have been more deaths in poetic circle. Only a few days ago, there was another suicide of a young poet from Guangzhou. For death, no live souls can comment, and what we can do is to love and care for the living ones to the best we can. For the dead, let them have the dignity of death. I rewrite the original poem into English, and gives it another Chinese version. The original poem follows.这首诗本来是在惊闻人民大学教授余虹前一天跳楼自杀时写的，也就是写于2007年12月7日。我和余虹并不熟悉，然而有着共同的朋友。在他死后，诗歌圈里也有多次自杀事件，最近的一个是8月1日广州东莞诗人吾同树的自杀。对于死亡，我们谁都无法用活人的心思去揣测，我们能做的就是爱活人，让死者连同死亡一样具有尊严。


　　　生死之间
黎明之前，走过卧室门后的镜子，
与那深处浮起的影子面面相觑。
对这似曾相识的陌生，彼此没有惊讶。
想到你纵身一跃，生命的柱头跌碎，
回音的花瓣沾在他人的脸上，被晒干剥落。

尊严只属于你自己，你秘而不宣地带走；
还在镜子里吗，那个凝结了的液态世界？

我捏了捏他的脸，不知道该借谁的力
令自己疼痛。懒于开灯刺眼，我依着
惯性走进厕所，暗中掏出热乎乎的一根，
内急舒缓了，水声停歇，全身随之一颤，
然后我感到它在我的两指间疲软、降温。
夜，静得令我感到自己的呼吸掠过上唇，
应该和多少年前与多少年后都没有分别。
　　　　　　　　　2007年12月7日

FAN Jinghua: I Know a Woman

　　I Know a Woman

Finally you love to be a high maintenance girl, or self-maintaining,
And you’ve learned how to roll over a man like mounting a cockhorse;
With only a few squirms you are already in a perfect pose.

Your arms flail by your thighs like paddles to spur and steer yourselves
Forward, a beautiful tail fanning out behind like my blissful mind.
I dive upward like a kite into my own dimension of space and time.

Speed does not punch you into a notch in the unknown,
For your heart latch is a cool flintlock in need of a scrape,
And the scenery along the way is too smooth and mesmerizing.

All the while, at the edge of your sight, a little girl
From my memory, eyes bright like graphite, moves abreast and still.
She alone knows and lives her lives of the past, the future and the present.

The intoxicated man-horse you know so well that you let yourself remain a woman,
As if you are on a cockleshell, leaning backward to move forward.
It is a river you are riding, you know it? You are ignorant like water.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　August 11, 2008


　　　我识得一个女人

你终于喜爱做一个难侍候的女人，或者你自我承欢，
你已学会提臀就跨上一个男人，犹如骑上一匹木马，
然后只需稍微扭一扭，你就进入一个完美的姿势。

看你的双臂在大腿两侧如双桨交替击水，驱动你们
向前，身后留下美丽的尾巴扇面一样打开我的灵魂。
我是一只向上空深潜的风筝，进入自己的时空。

速度并没有将你冲撞到无知之境中的某个凹处，
因为你心脏的门闩仍是一把燧发手枪，缺少一次刮擦，
而一路的风景蜿蜒连绵，令人目不暇给而飘飘欲仙。

与此同时，你视野的边界上，一个小女孩，双眼如石墨，
一直与你并肩同行，看似静止。她来自记忆，所以
惟有她那么自知，并生活着自己的前生、今世与来生。

那酣醉的人头马你如此熟悉，很难不充分展现你的女性，
犹如乘着一只贝壳小船，后仰是为了加速向前。
你驾驭着一条河流，可你却像水一样无知。
　　　　　　　　　　　　2008年8月12日


Note: The poem contains one allusion to Centaur and Caenis in Greek mythology. It is said that Caenis was originally a female. After she was raped by Poseidon, she asked him to change her into a man so that she could no longer be raped any more. She was also made invulnerable to weaponry. She then changed the name to Caeneus. Caeneus was one great member to the legendary people the Lapiths, and the Lapith king was marrying Hippodameia “the tamer of horses,” Centaurs were invited to the wedding. As Centaurs were not used to wine, they became drunk and unruly. One particular Centaur tried to rape the bride when she came to toast. Then a fight broke out. Since Caeneus could not be beaten by any weapon, Centaur could only bury him into the earth (into hell) by rocks and trees.

　　　　Battle between Centaurs and Lapiths by Piero di Casimo (detail)

注释：本诗有一个古希腊神话的典故。故事有关Caenis和人头马的故事。据说，Caenis本是女儿身，是Lapith族人的公主；当她被海神波塞冬强暴之后，请求海神将她变成男人，以免再遭强暴。波塞冬同意了，并且还将她变得刀枪不入。然后她也改成了一个男人的名字Caeneus。当年，英雄Theseus忒修斯的好友、Lapith国王Pirithous和驯马女Hippodameia结婚的时候，人头马们也都受邀出席。但是由于人头马们不胜酒力，结果有一马在新娘敬酒的时候，跳起企图强奸她，同时其他人头马也都将女人和儿童夹到了裆下。于是就有了一场战斗。在这场战斗中，人头马们无法打败刀枪不入的Caeneus，只能用石头和树木将他砸到地底下。而Laptih国王则在忒修斯的帮助下，打败了人头马们，将他们放逐出美丽的Thessaly塞萨利。

　　For me, this poem, beyond its ostensible sexual content, is essentially about a girl growing up to a woman, and she finally realizes how to make use of her sexuality. The man-horse in the poem may refer to the Centaur aspect of man, while the Chinese version of man-horse 人马 may refer not only to the half-man-half-horse monster or beastly man but also refer to the forces (men and horses) at her command.
　　For an interesting note, I read of an anecdote yesterday. One mid-aged woman bought a Nike T-shirt with a slogan “I like being on top” and found herself receiving embarrassing responses. Then, her husband asked others about the meaning of the slogan, some telling him that it conveys sexual nuance. The woman went to the shop, asking for a reimbursement, but the shop said that the slogan was actually meant to be a sports encouragement for such women as managerial female professionals, or at least their Chinese rendition as “reach to the highest peak” was. Obviously, no one in China would ever imagine there would be anyone wearing a T-shirtMamas’ “I Love My Cunt” T-shirt.
　　于我而言，这首诗除了表面上的性内容外，本质上是有关一个女孩成长为女人的过程，这女人最终认识到了如何运用她的性。本诗中的man-horse人马不仅仅指半人半马的怪物，亦即动物性的男人，其中文版中的人马则还指受命于她的人员。这也就是进一步强调了这个女人的自主性。
　　至此，想到昨天独到的一条趣闻。一位中年女人买了一件耐克T恤，然后总会有人盯着她看，令她很尴尬。原来，那上面写着I like being on top的英文，当然这在英文中有“我喜欢上位”（做爱）的意思，于是该女士夫妇去专卖店理论，而店方却说这不过是一个体育口号，他们的翻译是“登上最高峰”。显然，中国还不会有人敢于想象得到T-ShirtMamas印着I Love My Cunt我爱我屄（美国2004年的事）的T恤。

Xiao Maxian: High-Summer Oleander

　　High-Summer Oleander
　　　　　　By Xiao Maxian　tr. FAN Jinghua
Because a wrong turn
Has a reason, Oleander, this turn
Leads to you. You, sitting there
Nonchalant in a huge pot,
Belong to no one but
The high summer and a chance encounter.
　　　　　　August 11, 2008


　　盛夏的夹竹桃
　　　　　　小玛仙

因为走错了路
因为走错路是为了遇到你
夹竹桃，你漫不经心
坐在一个巨大的花盆里
谁也不属于
属于夏天，和邂逅。
　　　　　　　2008.8.11

This is a freshly written poem, lovely. The poet is one of the many internet-based writers in China, who represent the vigor and buoyancy of contemporary Chinese poetry hard to be found in the print media. This poem is quite typical of the poet's temperament, as compared to the poems I've already introduced in this blog. Although the poet wins a quite noted prize, she seems still "unrecognized" in the "official" media.

About the Poet:
Xiao Maxian, penname of Wang Shasha, born in late 1970s, writes poetry, essays and stories since 2004. Her work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, and she won the Second Prize for Ye Hong International Women Poetry Competition in 2007. She now lives in Daqing, Heilongjiang Province, and serves as a webmaster in Poemlife.com, an influential poetry website in Mainland China.

FAN Jinghua: Only about One

　　Only about One

　　　I
At small hours my mind begins to grow
Warts and holes.
It is not a pair of lungs hanging out on a tree for irrigation.
But bean curd taking forms in coagulant solution,
Of much more clarity and purity.
The making of silences
Makes me compact outside and expansive within,
And I have to sit like a vegetable to forget I am a human being
Vulnerable to rust disease and humiliatable to brave ignorance.

　　　II
Questions are self-generable, asexual.
Questions about one has infiltrated me like rays,
And I am a honeycombed briquette.
No one ever sees the language of the initial question.

　　　III
In what language
Do you authorize yourself to be condemned
For your loneliness to the bones?
How to keep one for the touch of bosom instead of pubis?
Rather shed sperm than spare spittle?
Are your lips tense enough
When you blow your fluted bones?
Is the condensed moisture warped for a listener?
What colors do the buds of notes reflect?

　　　IV
I can see you when everything is still, and you are no stranger.
The death of night is a black mirror,
And when my fingers touch its face, no words appear.
What color is the bubble around you?
　　　　　　　　　　　　　August 8-9, 2008


　　只关乎一人

午夜过后，我的脑子开始生长
赘疣和漏洞。
那不是挂在树上冲洗的一付肚肺，
而是豆腐在卤水中的各式形状，
更加清澈而纯粹。
这一制造沉默的过程
令我内部更加紧凑而外部更加膨松，
我必须坐成一棵植物才能忘记自己是人，
易于生锈，易于被无畏的无知羞辱。

　　*　*　*　*

问题总是无性自我繁衍。
有关一个人的问题已经像光线一样穿透我，
而我仍是一块蜂窝煤。
无人看见最初的问题采用的是什么语言。

　　*　*　*　*

你授权什么语言诅咒你
永远解脱不了独孤？
你如何保持一个人，
能够胸脯相贴而非耻骨搓揉？
宁可丢撒精液也不愿浪费口水？
当你拿起骨头的箫管，
你的嘴唇是否收放自如？
那些潮气凝成的音符是否因守候听者而扭曲着身子？
它们的蓓蕾折射出怎样的色彩？

　　*　*　*　*

当一切静止时，我看到了你，绝非陌生人。
夜的死亡是一面黑色的镜子，
我的手指触摸它的脸，没有字词出现。
笼罩你的泡泡是什么颜色？
　　　　　　　　　　　2008年8月10日

Wang Han: Air of Liangzhou

　　Air of Liangzhou the Garrison Town
　　　　　　　　WANG Han (?687-726, Tang Dynasty) 　tr. Fan Jinghua
The jape cups grow luminous and mellow with grape wine,
But we have to drink fast at the urge of lute from horseback.
Oh, do not laugh at those found lying on the battlefield, still drunk,
For how many have you seen return from battles sober and whole?

　　凉州词
　　　　唐·王翰 (687?-726?)
葡萄美酒夜光杯
欲饮琵琶马上催
醉卧沙场君莫笑
古来征战几人回

word-by-word English annotation:

　　凉州Liangzhou (name of a frontier county) 词song/lyrics
　　　　唐·王翰
葡萄grape　美fine　酒wine　夜night　光light　杯cup
欲about to　饮drink　琵琶pipa (a lute)　马horse　上on　催urge
醉drunk　卧lie　沙场battlefield (sand-field)　君you　莫not　笑laugh
古ancient　来since　征conquer　战battle　几few/how many　人people　回return

Pronunciation in Pinyin:

　　　凉liang2州zhou1词ci2
葡pu2　萄tao2　美mei3　酒jiu3　夜ye4　光guang1　杯bei1
欲yu4　饮yin3　琵pi1　琶pa　马ma2　上shang4　催cui1
醉zui4　卧wo4　沙sha1　场chang3　君jun1　莫mo4　笑xiao4
古gu3　来lai2　征zheng1　战zhan4　几ji3　人ren2　回hui2



　　　　　　Chinese painting after the poem with calligraphy of the poem


About the poet:
　　Wang Han 王翰 (?687-726) was an Early Tang poet, representative of a mode of writing labeled as 边塞诗 “Frontier Poetry,” which lasted for the entire Tang dynasty with many exquisite poems. Another famous poem under the same title was written by 王之涣WANG Chihuan (688-742). The title “Liangzhou Ci” (Liangzhou Lyrics) is also sometimes written as “Liangzhou Ge” (Liangzhou Song), which means that the title is not particularly about a specific place. Liangzhou lies in the western region of Tang kingdom, in the present Gansu Province. Grape is believed to be introduced from there, and now Xinjiang Uigur regions are famous for their grapes. Pipa as a musical instrument is also believed to be local from the region. Night-luminous cup 夜光杯was reported to be made of a certain type of jade in Xinjiang area. The wall of the cup might be made so thin and transparent that when it was filled with wine and the moonlight shone through it, the reflections became so clear and bright that it appeared to glow by itself.

　　　　　　　　modern night-luminous goblet produced from Gansu

　　Wang Han’s poem is considered by many anthologists as one of the handful best seven-character quatrains in Tang Dynasty. Even for this 28-word poem, there are differences in the interpretation. The first discrepancy of interpretation lies in the word 催 (urge) as to whether the lute (pipa) music is a call for arms or for drinking. The major interpretive disagreement lies obviously in the tone. Does the poem express pro-war heroism or anti-war hedonism? Or, maybe it is merely an antiphrasis, a kind of carpe diem under the veneer of meaningless looming death? The irony lies in the fact that their drinking seems to prepare them for the doomed death in drunkenness so that they might forget their lives. Anyway, even for the ostensible bravery, this poem does render the tone of the chivalric spirit. “Once gone, never back.”
　　The third line of this poem even reminds me of Seamus Heaney’s “They buried us without shroud or coffin/ And in August the barley grew up out of the grave” from his “Requiem for the Croppies.” While Heaney’s speaker “us” may be taken to be the dead, the speaker in Wang’s poem is the dead-to-be. Underlining both is a heroism, no matter whether it is worthwhile or not.
　　The rhyming words are well chosen in the poem. It is the required AABA scheme. The first and second end rhyme words are of high level flat tone while the last is of high rising level tone, indicating a kind of question. In the pinyin system, there are four tone symbols: high level flat tone 1, high rising level tone 2, low falling-rising tone 3, high falling short tone 4 and a neutral tone (such as the unstressed syllable in English, as illustrated in pipa here). The fourth tone usually has a sound effect of being cut short, while the level tones may suggest a kind of breadth and depth.

　　《凉州词》有两个最著名，一个是王翰的，一个是王之涣的，各有意趣。王翰的“醉卧沙场君莫笑”写得好。我们说醉生梦死，人生如梦，古来万事转头空，功名尘土，在这一行中都写出来了。征战沙场从来都是说要建功立业名垂千古的，但是这里的“我们”却醉卧沙场；这里的卧是否也就是死了呢？死了还没有酒醒，这是一个irony反讽。当然，也有人将这里的口吻和心态解读成豪迈，但我倾向于认为这是一种不得不如此的豪迈，也就是已经到了这一步，也就必须要有“壮士一去不复返”的意气了。
　　我将第三行翻译成这样：Oh, do not laugh at those found lying on the battlefield, still drunk,啊，可不要嘲笑那些被发现躺倒在战场上的人仍然醉着。这个“仍然醉着”放在最后，用一个逗号隔开，是为了造成一种效果。一开始读到的是：不要嘲笑那些躺倒在战场上的人；也就是，不要嘲笑战死者；而突然发现这些躺倒的人仍然醉着，那么就有了一种很反讽的效果。当然，谁也不知道这些躺倒的醉汉到底死了没有。最后一句我翻译成：For how many have you seen return from battles sober and whole? 因为你看到过多少人从战场回来，清醒而完整呢？这里的sober一方面意思是清醒的、没有喝醉酒的，另一方面也是慎审理性的，这是相对应上文的喝醉酒以及“今朝有酒今朝醉”的心态，whole当然是完整的意思，也就是身体没有残缺，但同时whole也指心智健全的意思。
　　王翰的这句诗令我想到爱尔兰诗人Seamus Heaney希尼的诗Requiem for the Croppies《平头匪挽歌》。所谓croppy是指一些剪平头的农民兵，他们在1919年的反英起义中，将大麦放在身上的衣兜里，作为行军时的干粮，结果很多人都被打死了，集体埋葬了。几个月后，大麦从坟墓中长了出来。这是一首十四行诗，最后的两行是：
　　　They buried us without shroud or coffin
　　　And in August the barley grew up out of the grave.
　　　他们将我们掩埋，没有尸衣或者棺木，
　　　到了八月，大麦从我们的坟墓中长出。
　这首诗是希尼最感动我的第一首诗。大麦barley是爱尔兰最常见的农作物，前几年还有一个英国人拍了一部电影叫做The Wind that Shakes the Barley《和风吹过大麦低》，讲的就是这一段事，而这名字又是因为当地的一首同名民谣而来的。这最后一行诗句中的“从坟墓中长出了大麦”就不仅仅是大麦这么简单，虽然这已经非常令人震惊而沉痛，犹如文革样板戏中的一句“仇恨入心要发芽”一样，这里长出来的大麦用我们的革命语言来说也就是仇恨的种子长出了革命的苗。
　　说远了，回到“醉卧沙场君莫笑”来，想象一下死者散发出来的是一身酒气，那该说他是豪爽潇洒视死如归呢还是颓废消沉醉死梦生呢？如果说希尼那首诗的说话人是死者，那么王翰的《凉州词》中的说话人就是将要死去的人。两首诗实际上都是从死者的角度说话。

FAN Jinghua: Autumn Sentiments

　　　Autumn Sentiments
The shoreline should have receded to the springtime by now.
Anyway, the children’s frolics are still April-like
And still thick are willow leaves on the riverbank
While their patterned shade becomes dry and faint.
Wild geese cry without any jittering, neither high nor low.
Fishermen take time to haul back their nets, as if to pose for the setting sun.

I stand before the window, like a morbid ancient poet, watching
The low clouds and lower boats on a long mirror,
Thinking of ancient laments over the unstoppable flow
Of time and drifters after fame and gain.
And night falls, and dark silhouettes of different height move westward.
So lonely.

I meant to tell you
That this would be the spare but engaged life I had imagined,
But it sounded so phony.
With air-conditioning and greenhouse effect,
Autumnal tristesse is long outdated, and what I can write is—
It is an extravagance to warm ourselves before a hearth
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　August 7, 2008


　　　　秋情
这个季节的河岸该又露出春天的旧水痕了吧
孩子的嬉闹声仍然是四月的
柳树叶还很浓郁，而投下的影子却干燥了许多
不缓不急的雁叫声不高不低
水上人收网的动作沉甸甸的，似乎要为夕阳摆出雕塑的姿势

我像古诗人一样站在窗前，遥望低低的云和窄镜面上的渔船
想到了逝者如斯和往来的都只是名利二字
于是，夜幕就降临了
担担子和背篓子的剪影沿着河岸西去

突然很寂寞

本想告诉你，这是我想象得到的清贫与充实
却觉得这听来多么虚假
在空调和温室效应的今天，悲秋早已过时
我能写的只能是，围着火炉似乎遥远得奢侈
　　　　　　　　　　　2008年8月8日

Notes:
The images in the first three lines are borrowed from part of late Tang poet杜牧DU Mu’s poem 《秋岸》“Autumn Rivershore,” which reads:
河岸微退落，柳影微凋疏。船上听呼稚，堤南趁漉鱼。
The river-shoreline has perceptibly receded,And the shade of willow leaves is becoming cancellous.Children are heard calling from the boats
Beyond the dam, where fishermen are casting nets.

FAN Jinghua: Everlasting Longing

　　Everlasting Longing
　　　　　　　　　After Bo Juyi

Imagine
As you and I with eyes closed
Counting how many waters and mountains are between us
Can fly on the wings of the increasing number
To each other
Like the eyesight glancing over a relief map
We are sure to see
Along the lonely and anxious route
The confluence of rivers and embrace of mountains
And the satiated stillness of crisscross paddy fields
Then we look ahead into each other’s direction
And before us lies an expansion of the night sky
Uncharted and fathomless
Neither knows where we might meet
Maybe over a moonlit ocean
Or above a heaving sorghum field

As if a sudden gust of ethereal wind
Strikes us with a marrow-freezing shiver
We open eyes only to find
We are ourselves at where we are
You by one window　me by another
Glacially apart
　　　　　　　　July 5, 2006


　　长相思
　　　　　　仿白居易

假若此刻
你我同时闭眼默数
我们之间相隔着多少山峦
多少天堑与沟壑
于是我们乘着数字的翅膀
飞出各自的窗户　像眼光
扫过模型地图
一路上　孤独而急切
看尽了河川的交汇　山峦的相拥
阡陌的纵横也透出静谧的团圞
而抬头远望
杳渺的夜空一片溟茫
没有路界　没有深浅
我们不知将在哪里相遇
——是月光下的一片汪洋
还是起伏得令人惊怵的青纱帐

犹如一阵罡风骤起
我们从一个寒颤中醒来
却发现一切依然　你
在一个远方的窗前　我
在另一个远方的窗前
冰川一样的距离

Bo Juyi: Everlasting Longing

　　　长相思
　　　　　　　　白居易 (772-846)
　汴水流，泗水流，流到瓜州古渡头。吴山点点愁。
　思悠悠，恨悠悠，恨到归时方始休。月明人倚楼。

English Version

　　　Everlasting Longing
　　　　　　　　　　Bai Juyi (Po Chü-i 772-846)

The still flow of Bian River runs,
The still flow of Si River runs,
At the ancient ferry of Gua Zhou
The confluence whirls, eastward.
Beyond,
Jiangnan peaks emerge as sorrows.

Far is my longing,
Deep is my grievance,
No end to my abjection
Till we are reunited.
Now,
In the moonlight a solitary one stands.

Back-translation into Contemporary Chinese:

　　长相思
　　　　　白居易

汴河之水静静淌
泗河之水默默流
汇合在瓜州古渡
荡着漩涡汤汤东去
更远处
江南冒出的山峰如愁

我遥远的思念
我深沉的怨尤
直到我们重聚
我的抑郁不会结束
此刻
月光下有一个人独伫


　　　　　　　　　　　　白居易 Bai Juyi (Bo Juyi, Po Chü-i, 772-846)
　　Bai Juyi (Bo Juyi, Po Chü-i, 772-846) was a late Tang poet, noted for his simple diction and grassroot concerns. These features were especially valued for the period style of the late Tang poetry such as Li Shangyin's, in which James Liu found a "baroque" quality. Perhpas beside this pretty piece of Ci-poem (lyrics for set tunes), Bai Juyi was remembered for narrative poems such as Song of Eternal Sorrow《长恨歌》 about the tragic love between Emperor Xuanzong and Lady Yang, Song of a Pipa Player《琵琶行》about the life of a half-deserted businessman's wife who was once a singing girl.
　　In this lovely ci-poem, the apparently hackneyed theme of "longing" and "yearning" was given a fresh treatment and rendition. There is not much elaboration on sorrow or sadness, but the everlastingness is given full treatment, which is done through the spatial amplitude in the poem. The perspective implied in the first stanza implies seems to be from a bird-view, while the last line of the second stanza may suggest a person looking upward to the moon from a tower. The depths point to two dimensions, the first being spatial and the second being psychological.
　　The flows of rivers "reach" an ancient ferry and stop there before the barriars of mountain peaks. This appears to be "realistic" but obviously not. The stop of the flows becomes a whirlpool in the mind, which may be understood to correspond with the dots of sorrows (点点愁) from the mist. In Confucius's Analects, flowing river is the unstoppable flow of time, and henceforth the forever failure of human endeavors in the course of time. In this poem, the impotence of men becomes the confluence between long period of yearning and short period of reunion: the temporary "whirlpool" or pause of water before the mountains in the form of a ferry. The second stanza then becomes a vision only.

　　白居易的词，人们很容易想起那首平易近人的《忆江南》，但是这首空灵的《长相思》在无穷多的“相思”词中，显得尤其洗炼脱俗。这首词有两个视角，上阕的说话人简直是在天上俯瞰，而如果按照通常的理解，那个倚楼人是在望月的话，下阕则可以理解为仰视。因此，我们可以说上下阕的目光都是伸向远方的。
　　上阕前三句空灵悠远，而第四句则将空灵之境的尽头笼罩在一片空朦的愁雾中。所有的流水山峦都是实在的，但却不是具体在眼前的。即使我们将上阕的说话人暂且当作下阕的那个倚楼人，我们也无法相信她能够看到汴水、泗水以及瓜州古渡乃至江南的一座座山。因此，这些实在的山水实际上是存在于主人公的心里的，是一种心中风景。我们自然不能说，这景中山水和主人公所思对象的旅踪有着对应的关系，但这山水之景肯定是主人公所能够体认的景境。能够体认identifiable也就是能够移情（神入）empathize，能够产生一种感情投入与投射projection；套用艾略特T. S. Eliot所说的，就是，这些外物或者物象objects能够成为主人公情感的“客观对应物objective correlative”。俞陛云说，第四句的一个“愁”字使得前三句都“ 愁” 化了，“否则汴泗交流，与人何涉耶”，实际上也等于讲了这层意思。不过，这里并没有一个具体的物象，而是一种动态的“流”。我以为起码前两句中的“流”相当于一个英文动名词，相当于说“汴水之流动”和“泗水之流动”，在瓜州古渡口合流了。这里“流”的纷沓萦回不仅是动态的，也是静态的，或者毋宁说是一种静止的流动still movement，与主人公的相思成为一种对应。这种静态和下阕中的动态形成对照。
　　我们可以假设主人公在内心以心灵之眼尾随着两条水的流淌，心思分为两路，漂浮于两条水上，终于抵达了忙碌的瓜州古渡，然而那儿并没有她心心念念的身影（我以为俞陛云说“由汴而泗”不一定确切，不过他说的“心逐流波，愈行愈远，直到天末吴山”深得其味）。于是她抬眼向东南，或者说将视野范围扩大，却看到一片茫茫然：江南群山笼罩在薄雾中，露出点点山峰，那人被淹没其中了，一如她的思念失去了一个可以落实的点。能够具体的是山峰，而正是这些具体的山峰反衬了她的无法找到一个具体的人，因此那点点吴山便化作tangible可感可触的“愁”了。
　　上阕中的视景sight和主人公有一段距离；也就是说，主人公是一种非身体化的在场disembodied presence出现在这个流动的长景中，或者说主人公只是在心中尾随那流水。因为心与身的分离，因而最后一句“吴山点点愁”的情感判断才显得自然而空灵，令所有不在场的读者才可能感同身受。读者在上阕中的参与感和下阕是不一样的，这种不同和视觉的不同相一致。
　　下阕中的感情出发点是一个具体的人，我们假设是那个“倚楼人”。当上阕以“吴山点点愁”这样的感情判断作结时，那个心游身外的视觉vision也就从那空远的长景中收回了，回到了眼前，于是身心合一。上阕中的那个非身体化的vision灵视以身体化的在场embodied presence占据了一个具体的情感时空位置。如果说，上阕中的流动是横亘在主人公视界之下的，那么下阕中的“悠悠”之空杳则是从主人公内心铺展出去的，这个内心便是一个具体的点，是那个暗含的“我”的主体位置。也正因为这阕词是从一个主体位置出发的，所以第三句的“恨到归时方始休”才合情合理，这不是作者的全知型omnipotent叙述立场，而是被叙述人的有限视角。上阕的一路流去，心随流水到天末，无法收回；下阕则显得放收自如，最终落实到一个人、一个具体可感的时空。
　　最后一句是非常典型的中国诗歌的句式。因为中国诗词中主语的不确定，我们很难说这一句到底是作者的描述还是主人公的自视。西方的叙事方式那种以模仿论为基础，可以用再现论representation的透视图中vanishing point没影点与景外／境外的观者／作者之间的距离来表述（也就相当于景深）；如果描述不能以此进行条分缕析，那么就有可能被认为叙述视角混乱（当然现代派的叙述方式则有意对此进行颠覆），而这在中国诗词中是不成问题的；这似乎也和汉语并置式语法一致。
　　“吴山点点愁”中的“点点”既可以说是吴山，也可以说是愁；既可以说“吴山点点”如“愁”，也可以说“吴山”如“点点愁”；这个“如”换成“是”则又将一个明喻换成了暗喻，而汉语不需要这么区分，也就根本不需要这个“如”或者“是”，干脆就用并置的方式，将其中的逻辑淡化了。这也就是为什么前苏联电影大师爱森斯坦在谈到电影蒙太奇语言的时候，首先就从汉字构成和中国画谈起了。而美国意象派诗歌的一个关键美学特征也就是凸现意象并置而造成的情感的意义的瞬间构成，以此降低逻辑思维中的理性。
　　同样，这种去逻辑化还会导致情感乃至意义的不确定性。最后一句“月明人倚楼”到底是孤独还是欣喜呢？如果我们将这一句的时间假定为一个未来时，也就是“恨休”的“归时”，那么这一句就可以理解为对未来的一种想象或者向往，那么这首词就变成了一种美好的期待。反之，如果将最后一句理解为了一个此刻的场景，那么显然那便是主人公的独自等待，是一个人面对一片广阔月色的凄清。我以为由于下阕基本上是从一个具体的主体立场出发，因此还是理解为一种想象比较合理一些。上阕前三句是空间上的魂游身外，下阕前三句则是时间上的心不在焉了。
　　因为汉语诗歌语言逻辑的含混，我们在赏析时，很难考察其中的人称和视角，而往往是采取一个比较通行或令人大多数能够接受的角度来阐释文字本身。这里的“月明人倚楼”作为一个确定的单独意象，可以说是与上阕最后一句“吴山点点愁”抽象化的散点意象相对应。如果将非身体化的在场等同于读者的立场等同，那么我们可以说“月明人倚楼”是作者的描述，也就是说，主人公实际上已经离开了月夜的场景，似乎在客观地反观自己，因此上下两阕的结句都是从叙述者立场的再现representation；反之，如果我们完全以主人公为整首词的呈现视点，那么我们可以说，最后一句是一个完全主观的表述expression。
　　不管如何理解，这两阕词还是构建在几个层面的对应上的；而其中最核心的对应便是空灵与具体的对应。和许多以藻饰华艳为主的词不同，这首词像一幅线条画般清淡，全词没有颜色，没有浓墨，非常写意杳阔。

YU Xiang: A Women's Lot

　　A WOMEN'S LOT
　　　　　　　　　　　　by YU Xiang 　tr. FAN Jinghua
Dark and skinny, Ricey and Nar,
Like two rocks covered with whelks,
Knees protruding from their bodies.
We used to play house and hopscotch,
We used to fight and make up.
My childhood in beautiful Horse-Choice Village
With Grandma, and wild roses that reddened the mountain.
Upon turning seven, I went back to the city for school,
And left them behind.

Whenever I was bullied
And called a bumpkin
Beckie, my primary school classmate,
Would come out every time,
Boldly, like a boy,
To protect me. In the third grade
She was struck with pneumonia, and failed to go up to the fourth.
I missed her every day, but I dared not look for her.
I felt inferior. She was my hero.

May, my distant cousin, lived in another city.
One Saturday in 1983,
While cycling to her drawing lessons in the Children's Palace
A truck ran over her right arm.
Later, she tried to draw with her left hand.
One day in 1985 spring, I went to see her.
Her mother said with a dim smile:
May is in the suburb,
In an asylum. She added, the landscape there is cheerful.

In junior high, I lived very close to Yonyon.
We went to school together and both secretly loved our Chinese teacher.
We tore up our Physics and Math textbooks
And let the pieces flake on the forehead of our headmistress.
We were placed into the Slow Class,
And dreamed of becoming writers.
Now I live by teaching Math,
While she lives in Germany, a businesswoman.

Beth, my desk-mate. In the second year of senior high,
I received a love letter from a certain boy
Just as she did.
All the words in hers were the same as in mine.
This happened more than once.
We played pranks and tortured him.
After he suddenly transferred to another school,
Her spirits sagged in a deep slump.
Three years ago, I heard of her story.
She swallowed a bottle of aspirin and forty Valium pills.

During my apprenticeship, I met a woman worker
Whose name I cannot remember now.
About twenty-seven or eight, she always tried to avoid men.
She would clamp an LBD with her fingers
And hold a soldering iron in the other hand,
Gesturing to me the way of the world.
After I left that factory, I missed her a lot
And I asked someone to tell her I was grateful,
But she said she did not know me.

Dawn, my colleague. Short-haired, straightforward,
And easily moved.
Once, in The Death of So-and-So she read and returned,
I saw a stain of tears.
Last summer, she went swimming and was drowned in the pool.
To this date, I do not go into the pool water.
My breath is saturated with chlorinated lime and bleaching powder.
I always run into her boyfriend,
A sad boy, like that tear stain
She left in my book.

I have never again met any from this lot,
And I’m always expecting
To bump into any of them
On a shiny afternoon.
　　　　　　　from Current Chinese Poetry 中国当代诗歌 (bilingual edition)
　　　　　　　　　(Shanghai: Shanghai Lit. & Art Press, 2008)


　　她们
　　　　　　宇向

又黑又瘦。小米和小拿。
像两块爬满海砺的礁石，
膝盖是突出的身体。
我们一起过家家、踢沙包……
打架，然后和好。
童年，在美丽的马卜崖村，
还有姥姥和满山鲜红的野玫瑰。
七岁。我回城上学。
离开她们。

张溪。小学同学。
那时我常受人欺负，
被骂成“乡巴妮儿”。
每次，她挺身而出，
像个男孩子，
保护我。三年级，
她因肺炎休学一年，留了级。
我天天想她，却不敢见她。
我自卑。 她是我心中的英雄。

梅。远房表姐。在另一座城市。
83年，一个星期六
她骑车去少年宫画画，
被一辆卡车碾断右臂……
后来，她试着用左手拿画笔。
85年春，我去找她，
姨淡淡地笑：梅在郊区
一家精神治疗中心，
那里风景怡人。

初中时，我和泳泳住得很近。
一起上学，一起暗恋语文老师。
我们撕碎物理和数学课本，
让纸片雪花般落向女校长的额头。
我们被编到后进班，
梦想长大成为作家。
现在，我靠数学糊口。
她生活在德国。商人。

贝芬。同桌。高中二年级时，
我收到一个男生的情书，
贝芬手里也有一封，
内容一字不差。
这种情况，经常发生。
我们便恶作剧，折磨他。
他中途转学。
她从此萎靡不振。
三年前，我听说，
她吞下一瓶阿司匹林、四十片安定。

实习时，认识一个女工。
名字，已经记不起来。
二十七、八岁，躲避异性。
她总是一手捏着一只发光二极管，
一手握住电烙铁，
比比划划，向我传授人生指南。
我离开那个工厂后，
非常怀念和感激她。
托人找她，可她说，
不认识我。

晓华。同事。短发。简单。
易被打动。
一次，在她还我的《XX之死》里，
我见到一滴泪痕。
今年夏天她去游泳，淹死在池子里。
如今，我仍不忍下水，
氯气、漂白粉化合了我的鼻息。
我常见到她的男友，
一个悲伤的男孩，
仿佛她留下的那滴泪痕。

我再也没有见过她们，
常常期待
在一个明朗的下午
遇到其中的一个。

About the Poet:

宇向，诗人、作家。“70后”重要诗人。现居山东济南。参与中国当代艺术、地下音乐、先锋诗歌等活动多年之后，2000年左右开始写作，2002年获“柔刚诗歌奖”；2004年被评为中国当代“最受读者喜爱的10位女诗人”之一；2006年获首届“宇龙诗歌奖”。

YU Xiang is one of the key figures among the Post-70s poets, currently living in Jinan, Shandong Province. After years of engagement with contemporary art and music, she became devoted to writing around 2000. Her awards include the 11th Rou Gang Poetry Prize (2002), top ten women poets in China (2004) and the First Yu Long Poetry Prize (2006).