A friend of Zhou Yaping, Ke Lan, who is a Chinese actress, posted on her Weibo (http://weibo.com/kelan) a picture of poems that Zhou Yaping published in the Poetry Journal, Stars( Xingxingshikan 星星诗刊) in July, 1989. The poems were written on March 15th, 1989; the journal was published in July, 1989. It is my first time to see the last two poems included here. This is fun. The poems are fresh and brisk. For instance, this one: 唱,把歌留在隧道里 穿过隧道 我们 能够摸到隧道之外的尖顶 我们只听到我们自己的唱 我们把歌留在隧道里—-《穿过隧道》
Month: April 2014
Kay Ryan and Zhou Yaping
Recently, I translated some of the American Poet Kay Ryan’s poems into Chinese to show them to Zhou Yaping, because I see similarities and comparable features between the short poems by Kay Ryan and Zhou Yaping. Both their poems tend to be concise, dense, witty, empowering and, in some sense, Imagist. They both tend to develop their poems from a central image to create a figurative world through which they manipulate their personal feeling and views of certain human conditions that they would not share with others in plain words. In the style, Zhou Yaping’s early poems tend to be very impersonal and it is difficult for the readers to see a specific person in his poems. Although in recent years Zhou more often uses “I” in his poems, this ‘I'” is still often a character in the figurative world and he acts among objects which are an imaginary environment improbable for a real person. But imaginary scenes may carry broader appeal to readers for bringing out their unspeakable feelings and depicting the structure of their untouched life conditions. Zhou Yaping said “Poets are secret people compared to the others, but we make the language public, free and equal. The secret persons should not be the the persons who create secrets for the second time. ” (Quoted from Liu Tao’s interview with Zhou Yaping, Xinxiang, Chongqingchubanshe, 2014) His ideas and styles resonate with Kay Ryan’s who, in her early stage of writing, wanted to find a way to express herself without having her personal part be exposed. Nevertheless, the poems are the most intimate connection of the inner worlds between the poets and the readers, as Kay Ryan admits, as a person(, or maybe especially as a poem), one is fully exposed.
Here are the several poems by Kay Ryan I translated into Chinese.
1.
井还是杯子
一开始
你怎么知道
你可以丢开什么
又该贴着心
保留什么
什么是那井
什么不过是个
杯子。有一些
人就
喝大了
.
The well or the cup
.
How can
you tell
at the start
what you
can give away
and what
you must hold
to your heart.
What is
the well
and what is
a cup. Some
people get
drunk up.
.
2.
捉迷藏
.
难的是
跳出来
而不是
等着被找到。
难的是
孤零零这么久
然后听见
有人来了
身边。这
就像某种形式的
皮肤组织生长
在空气中,
并不是它被撕开了,
是你 去撕它。
.
Hide and Seek
.
It’s hard not
to jump out
instead of
waiting to be
found. It’s
hard to be
alone so long
and then hear
someone come
around. It’s
like some form
of skin’s developed
in the air
that, rather
than have torn,
you tear.
3.
最好
.
无论我们怎样被雕刻
被削减
我们会继续尽力
最好,就好像
这不重要
我们的一公顷减少到了
一平方英尺。好
像我们的花园只是一颗豆
我们也会庆幸,只要
它能旺盛,如
同一颗豆
就能滋养我们
.
The Best of It
.
However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn’t matter that
our acre’s down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we’d rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.
4.
回家来歇
.
鸡们
在打圈儿,在
遮蔽
白天。太阳
明亮,但
鸡们挡了
路。是的,
天空是黑的
满是鸡,
密密麻麻。
它们转啊
它们又转啊
这些鸡
是你一次一只
放养的
小鸡——–
各个品种。
现在他们都
回家来
歇了——-所有的
同一类
一个速度
成双的事物
.
Home to Roost
.
The chickens
are circling and
blotting out the
day. The sun is
bright, but the
chickens are
in the way. Yes,
the sky is dark
with chickens,
dense with them.
They turn and
then they turn
again. These
are the chickens
you let loose
one at a time
and small—
various breeds.
Now they have
come home
to roost—
all the same kind
at the same speed.
.
5.
成双的事物
.
有谁,谁只看见了翅膀
就可推想
鸟在地上用的
细枝条般的东西
它们向后弯曲的方式
和立着的怪样?
谁,只审视了
沙地里的爪印
就想得到那些小叉子
从风中撤了营?
这么多成双的事物如同异数
谁能梦想到
翅膀宽阔的绝望之渡鸦
会撤离天空而走
在地上,罗圈着腿
如一只普通的乌鸦
.
Paired Things
.
Who, who had only seen wings.
could extrapolate the
skinny sticks of things
birds use for land.
the backward way they bend,
the silly way they stand?
And who, only studying
birdtracks in the sand.
could think those little forks
had decamped on the wind?
So many paired things seem odd.
Who ever would have dreamed
the broad winged raven of despair
would quit the air and go
bandylegged upon the ground,
a common crow.
.
(All the poems by Kay Ryan are cited from Kay Ryan: The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, 2010)