臧棣诗两首
Revolution Canonical Poetry Series
Zang Di (1964-) tr. Fan Jinghua
This is the joy of existence: wild fires or wild grasses.
Mutually linked up, spectacular amid secret stimulations.
Dynamos run without explanations, no part over the body having fear.
Education is everywhere: a session of self-criticism can cook
wild vegetables. And wild fruits, rotten, scatter beside wild animals,
emitting the revolutions of morality. A stir of air
will bring forth a beautiful space, and even
makes wild men lie lower than wild flowers.
So wild that nature feels ashamed. The end is an illusion.
Do you still remember how we race against time?
This is a wild pride, and mystery, you have only
One friend and a half. No good if not everlasting—
This is the joy that gloomy ones can never understand.
This unorthodox way of chewing, poetry grinds teeth on our behalf.
For Wang Ao
Oct. 2008
革命的诗经丛书
藏棣
这是生存的欢乐：野火或者野草。
互相联系，壮观在秘密的激励中。
不解释就能发电，浑身怕过谁呵。
处处都是教育：自我批评一下，
野菜就熟了。而野果子腐烂在野味边上，
散发出道德的革命。一种气息
就能带来一个美妙的空间，甚至是，
野人躺得比野花还要低。
全都野得令自然羞愧。尽头只是假象。
你还记得我们怎样和时间赛跑吗？
这是野蛮的骄傲，神秘你只有
一个半朋友。不永恒，不行——
这是阴郁的人不能理解的欢乐。
这是不合规矩的咀嚼，诗在替我们磨牙。
——赠王敖
2008年10月
Beautiful Mind Series
Revolution Canonical Poetry Series
Zang Di (1964-) tr. Fan Jinghua
This is the joy of existence: wild fires or wild grasses.
Mutually linked up, spectacular amid secret stimulations.
Dynamos run without explanations, no part over the body having fear.
Education is everywhere: a session of self-criticism can cook
wild vegetables. And wild fruits, rotten, scatter beside wild animals,
emitting the revolutions of morality. A stir of air
will bring forth a beautiful space, and even
makes wild men lie lower than wild flowers.
So wild that nature feels ashamed. The end is an illusion.
Do you still remember how we race against time?
This is a wild pride, and mystery, you have only
One friend and a half. No good if not everlasting—
This is the joy that gloomy ones can never understand.
This unorthodox way of chewing, poetry grinds teeth on our behalf.
For Wang Ao
Oct. 2008
革命的诗经丛书
藏棣
这是生存的欢乐：野火或者野草。
互相联系，壮观在秘密的激励中。
不解释就能发电，浑身怕过谁呵。
处处都是教育：自我批评一下，
野菜就熟了。而野果子腐烂在野味边上，
散发出道德的革命。一种气息
就能带来一个美妙的空间，甚至是，
野人躺得比野花还要低。
全都野得令自然羞愧。尽头只是假象。
你还记得我们怎样和时间赛跑吗？
这是野蛮的骄傲，神秘你只有
一个半朋友。不永恒，不行——
这是阴郁的人不能理解的欢乐。
这是不合规矩的咀嚼，诗在替我们磨牙。
——赠王敖
2008年10月
Beautiful Mind Series
Zang Di (1964-) tr. Fan Jinghua
This corner is yours now: no one comes from the end,
No one passes from the nearby. Behind the grove
Lies the price of mystery. Games just over, no one
Has ever thought how lovely a touchstone can be and how come
Thoughts can be harder than basic instincts. So much sweat!
Watery, unable to stand a touch. Haven’t you hoped to know
How beautifulness is trained? Deritualization means more
Ready examples. A dozen of black ants appear to console
The details of life: their crawling avoids fallen petals,
Bearing on their shoulders a peanut shell. It should not be
Difficult to extract a kind of black step from this tiny march.
I am walking toward a corner more abstract than human’s fate.
I hope to help us figuring out: if you are beautified
Out of carelessness, what would you do? If you are beautified
Before you are prepared, do we have another chance?
Oct. 2008
美妙思想丛书
This corner is yours now: no one comes from the end,
No one passes from the nearby. Behind the grove
Lies the price of mystery. Games just over, no one
Has ever thought how lovely a touchstone can be and how come
Thoughts can be harder than basic instincts. So much sweat!
Watery, unable to stand a touch. Haven’t you hoped to know
How beautifulness is trained? Deritualization means more
Ready examples. A dozen of black ants appear to console
The details of life: their crawling avoids fallen petals,
Bearing on their shoulders a peanut shell. It should not be
Difficult to extract a kind of black step from this tiny march.
I am walking toward a corner more abstract than human’s fate.
I hope to help us figuring out: if you are beautified
Out of carelessness, what would you do? If you are beautified
Before you are prepared, do we have another chance?
Oct. 2008
美妙思想丛书
这角落现在是你的了：没有人从尽头走来，
也没有人从附近走过。灌木的背后
是一个神秘的代价。游戏刚刚结束，
没想到试金石会这么可爱。没想过
思想竟然比本能还要硬。流了这么多汗。
水汪汪的，一触即发。你不是想知道
美妙是怎么炼成的吗？不仪式，意味着
例子更现成。十几粒黑蚂蚁像是在安慰
人生的细节：它们绕过剥落的花瓣，
将花生壳缓缓抬起。从这小小的行进中，
提取一种黑色的步伐，应该不是什么难事。
我正走向比人的命运更抽象的角落。
我想帮助我们弄清楚：如果一不小心，
就被美妙了，你该怎么办？如果还没准备好，
就已经被美妙了，我们是否还有别的机会？
2008.10.
Zang Di (1964-) is perhaps the best one among the contemporary poets. He is considered to be the most representative of the so-called “academic school” (学院派), but this is perhaps an easy label. Zang has always been in the academic institution; or more precisely, he teaches in Chinese Department in Peking University, which makes him the most prominent figure to be applied such a label.
Compared with those often-grouped with him who wrote in the wreck or light of Western High modernist masters, Zang’s language levitates between the overtly colloquial and the purely written. One of major difference between the so-called grass-root (school of) poetry (民间派literally, among the people) and the academic school, in my understanding, is the transparency of language. That is, the grass-root poetry tries a language that facilitates the poetry’s intervention in life, although the poetry may appear to be too prosaic, while at best the prosaic language may be compensated with the overall irony of the poem. The contemporary reality is usually obscured in the poetry of the academic school, or it may be said that these poets are more reflective artists who prefer to step back from reality in order to maintain a deeper perspective.
If a poem may be expected to bring us a new perspective to view the world, its language may be expected to perform a function of mediation between the everyday reality, mundane or not, and the metaphysical idea. In this sense, Zang has done its job. While his poems appear to have transcended everyday life as perceived by the media and the grass-root poets, his poetry does not retreat into purely metaphysical meditation or language game, but can be related to the existence of the people.
Zang has in recently two or three years written a few poem series, and the series called "series" is particularly ambitious. The two poems here are the most recent examples of his poetry. The first poem can be read as a belated response to the Cultural Revolution by the generation who was brought up in the post-Cultural Revolution era. This generation has not been persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, but familiar with those victims, therefore they could be indirect witnesses. Furthermore, the end of CR does not mean the discard of its language, and this generation is particularly sensitive to the CR language /discourse. Zang must have found that the discourse of Cultural Revolution has disturbingly taken root into the contemporary writing. In fact, the discourse of revolution has always been central to modern and contemporary literature in China from Qing Dynasty (Manchu people) when a vernacular Chinese was adopted to write a new literature, especially true in terms of poetry writing.
This poem in particular attempts to build out of the language (discourse) of revolution a new language or discourse, which shares the absolute idealism with CR discourse. The slogans about self-criticism and the “revolutionary ideal” are smoothed out into the poem as both a reflection and a parody over poetry-writing itself.
也没有人从附近走过。灌木的背后
是一个神秘的代价。游戏刚刚结束，
没想到试金石会这么可爱。没想过
思想竟然比本能还要硬。流了这么多汗。
水汪汪的，一触即发。你不是想知道
美妙是怎么炼成的吗？不仪式，意味着
例子更现成。十几粒黑蚂蚁像是在安慰
人生的细节：它们绕过剥落的花瓣，
将花生壳缓缓抬起。从这小小的行进中，
提取一种黑色的步伐，应该不是什么难事。
我正走向比人的命运更抽象的角落。
我想帮助我们弄清楚：如果一不小心，
就被美妙了，你该怎么办？如果还没准备好，
就已经被美妙了，我们是否还有别的机会？
2008.10.
Zang Di (1964-) is perhaps the best one among the contemporary poets. He is considered to be the most representative of the so-called “academic school” (学院派), but this is perhaps an easy label. Zang has always been in the academic institution; or more precisely, he teaches in Chinese Department in Peking University, which makes him the most prominent figure to be applied such a label.
Compared with those often-grouped with him who wrote in the wreck or light of Western High modernist masters, Zang’s language levitates between the overtly colloquial and the purely written. One of major difference between the so-called grass-root (school of) poetry (民间派literally, among the people) and the academic school, in my understanding, is the transparency of language. That is, the grass-root poetry tries a language that facilitates the poetry’s intervention in life, although the poetry may appear to be too prosaic, while at best the prosaic language may be compensated with the overall irony of the poem. The contemporary reality is usually obscured in the poetry of the academic school, or it may be said that these poets are more reflective artists who prefer to step back from reality in order to maintain a deeper perspective.
If a poem may be expected to bring us a new perspective to view the world, its language may be expected to perform a function of mediation between the everyday reality, mundane or not, and the metaphysical idea. In this sense, Zang has done its job. While his poems appear to have transcended everyday life as perceived by the media and the grass-root poets, his poetry does not retreat into purely metaphysical meditation or language game, but can be related to the existence of the people.
Zang has in recently two or three years written a few poem series, and the series called "series" is particularly ambitious. The two poems here are the most recent examples of his poetry. The first poem can be read as a belated response to the Cultural Revolution by the generation who was brought up in the post-Cultural Revolution era. This generation has not been persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, but familiar with those victims, therefore they could be indirect witnesses. Furthermore, the end of CR does not mean the discard of its language, and this generation is particularly sensitive to the CR language /discourse. Zang must have found that the discourse of Cultural Revolution has disturbingly taken root into the contemporary writing. In fact, the discourse of revolution has always been central to modern and contemporary literature in China from Qing Dynasty (Manchu people) when a vernacular Chinese was adopted to write a new literature, especially true in terms of poetry writing.
This poem in particular attempts to build out of the language (discourse) of revolution a new language or discourse, which shares the absolute idealism with CR discourse. The slogans about self-criticism and the “revolutionary ideal” are smoothed out into the poem as both a reflection and a parody over poetry-writing itself.
As to the second poem, it the word “beautified” (beautiful) is replaced with the prevailing catchword “harmony” as propagandized today in China, then the poem is a satire of the contemporary political culture.
ZANG Di 臧棣 (1964-)
臧棣可说是最优秀的当代诗人之一，他通常被视为所谓的学院派的代表人物，然而这不过是一个很方便的标签而已。这大概是因为臧棣一直在学术机构中，在北京大学中文系任教，而且他松散的诗歌圈中人也都有相近的诗歌追求。和他经常被归为一类的诗人通常是吸收了西方盛现代派大师们的营养，在他们的光照下写作。
所谓的民间派和学院派的一个最大不同在于对于语言的理念和追求，民间派力主的是语言的透明，语言与现实之间的毫无间隔，在做得比较好的时候，民间派以一种整体反讽的方式弥补了语言的平薄，而学院派的现实关注则是比较曲折，或者说从现实中退后以保持一种景深和整体化的艺术效果。臧棣的语言在明白的口语与纯粹的书面语之间浮动，举重若轻。
如果我们期待一首诗能够为我们提供一种新的观察世界的方式，那么我们也就会期待其语言能够发挥干预现实的功能，且不管这现实本身是否平庸；我们期待的诗歌中的形而上理念应该是可以联系得到现实的。在这一点上，臧棣诗歌确实是成功的，也就是具体内容的超越现实不是遁入玄思或和语言游戏，而是可以被推展到现实。
最近两三年里，臧棣写了几个系列诗，其中以系列为主题的诗尤其雄心勃勃。这里翻译的两首诗便是最新的例证。第一首《革命的诗经丛书》可以读成是成长于文革后的诗人对于文革迟来的回应，这一代人没有亲身经历文革的迫害却又亲历了被迫害者，因此可以成为一种间接的见证人，不仅如此，文革的结束却不是文革话语的结束，这使得这一代诗人对于革命话语具有一种很特别的感觉。臧棣显然已经发现文革话语令人不安地扎根于当代写作中了。事实是，革命话语一直是中国现当代文学的一个主导语言方式，从清末开始的白话文写作新文学的时候就是如此了，而在诗歌写作中则更加突出。
这首诗可说是一种尝试，试图从文革话语中重建一种新的话语，一种诗歌语言，与文革话语分享某种绝对的理想化。在此，诸如自我批评以及革命理想这样的文革口号悄悄地变成了一种诗歌写作的反思，同时还是一种自嘲。而在后一首诗中，如果我们将美妙换成和谐这样的词，那么就是一个知识分子对于当今政治与文化的一种嘲弄了。
2008年10月
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