Xiao Hong
translated from the Chinese by Zhang Er and Martine Bellen
Grains of Sand
10
Friends and enemies
I respect them
Equally
Because on my soul
Lines have been drawn by both.
13
My heart is filled with sand and stone
Therefore, what I desire is an open field—
High sky. Flying birds.
15
Go! You must!
If one has the fate of flowing water
Why desire stillness?
19
When the moon is full, we see it.
When the moon is concave, it can be seen as well.
But the warping of the human soul,
Can never be seen.
20
Life, why don’t you hang a bell around your neck?
Otherwise, when you are lost
How can one know.
22
The white horse of ideality can’t be ridden
The lover in the dream can’t be loved.
23
Ocean so vast, the earth so broad
Yet our minds so hatefully narrow.
I should have left?
24
When the wild grass is growing in one’s heart
There is no need to hoe it.
And it can never be hoed.
25
Annoying people, of course, one shouldn’t approach,
But lovable ones are among the annoying.
If one forever avoids filth,
One shall never obtain purity.
28
What is most painful
Cannot be spoken of.
29
The heart that lost love
Is no different than the sky that lost its stars.
32
Accidentally pushing open the window,
I saw a full moon perched on the eaves.
33
When one is
Lonely
One does not particularly want to see lonely things.
35
I dashed from one exotic land to another.
This dim desire!
What sent me off were the waves on the sea.
What received me were the wind and frost in exotic lands.
36
As long as there is truth,
Even if it carries a bit of wickedness,
I will accept it.
__________
Xiao Hong was born in 1911 in Northern China and died when she was thirty-one years old in a Hong Kong hospital during an air bombardment by the Japanese military in World War II. During her short life, she wrote and published more than a million words, most notably epic novels and numerous short stories. Though her work received a sensational reception in the 1930s and ’40s, it was largely ignored after the war until the late ’90s.
The poems, translated here, were written on January 3, 1937, during her short, self-imposed exile in Tokyo before the onset of the full-fledged Japanese invasion of China. The full work has thirty-six sections under the title.
For more information on Xiao Hong, please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao_Hong.
Zhang Er was born in Beijing and moved to the US in 1986. She is the author of four collections of poetry in Chinese, most recently Yellow Walls: A String of Doors (Huangchenggen, yiliumen, First Line Press). Her selected poems in two bilingual collections, So Translating Rivers and Cities and Verses on Bird are from Zephyr Press. She co-edited the bilingual volume Another Kind of Nation: an Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Talisman House, Publishers). She has read and lectured at international festivals, conferences, reading series and universities in China, France, Portugal, Russia, Peru, Argentina, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and in the US. She teaches at The Evergreen State College in the state of Washington.
Martine Bellen is the author of numerous collections of poetry, most recently Wabac Machine (Furniture Press Books).
translated from the Chinese by Zhang Er and Martine Bellen
Grains of Sand
10
Friends and enemies
I respect them
Equally
Because on my soul
Lines have been drawn by both.
13
My heart is filled with sand and stone
Therefore, what I desire is an open field—
High sky. Flying birds.
15
Go! You must!
If one has the fate of flowing water
Why desire stillness?
19
When the moon is full, we see it.
When the moon is concave, it can be seen as well.
But the warping of the human soul,
Can never be seen.
20
Life, why don’t you hang a bell around your neck?
Otherwise, when you are lost
How can one know.
22
The white horse of ideality can’t be ridden
The lover in the dream can’t be loved.
23
Ocean so vast, the earth so broad
Yet our minds so hatefully narrow.
I should have left?
24
When the wild grass is growing in one’s heart
There is no need to hoe it.
And it can never be hoed.
25
Annoying people, of course, one shouldn’t approach,
But lovable ones are among the annoying.
If one forever avoids filth,
One shall never obtain purity.
28
What is most painful
Cannot be spoken of.
29
The heart that lost love
Is no different than the sky that lost its stars.
32
Accidentally pushing open the window,
I saw a full moon perched on the eaves.
33
When one is
Lonely
One does not particularly want to see lonely things.
35
I dashed from one exotic land to another.
This dim desire!
What sent me off were the waves on the sea.
What received me were the wind and frost in exotic lands.
36
As long as there is truth,
Even if it carries a bit of wickedness,
I will accept it.
__________
Xiao Hong was born in 1911 in Northern China and died when she was thirty-one years old in a Hong Kong hospital during an air bombardment by the Japanese military in World War II. During her short life, she wrote and published more than a million words, most notably epic novels and numerous short stories. Though her work received a sensational reception in the 1930s and ’40s, it was largely ignored after the war until the late ’90s.
The poems, translated here, were written on January 3, 1937, during her short, self-imposed exile in Tokyo before the onset of the full-fledged Japanese invasion of China. The full work has thirty-six sections under the title.
For more information on Xiao Hong, please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao_Hong.
Zhang Er was born in Beijing and moved to the US in 1986. She is the author of four collections of poetry in Chinese, most recently Yellow Walls: A String of Doors (Huangchenggen, yiliumen, First Line Press). Her selected poems in two bilingual collections, So Translating Rivers and Cities and Verses on Bird are from Zephyr Press. She co-edited the bilingual volume Another Kind of Nation: an Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Talisman House, Publishers). She has read and lectured at international festivals, conferences, reading series and universities in China, France, Portugal, Russia, Peru, Argentina, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and in the US. She teaches at The Evergreen State College in the state of Washington.
Martine Bellen is the author of numerous collections of poetry, most recently Wabac Machine (Furniture Press Books).