‘The Animal Manager and his Dreamscape’ by Ye Yu-ting

動物管理員和他的夢境

「你聽見了嗎?」

「聽見什麼?」

「河馬的聲音。」

「河馬的聲音?」

「有關安那其。」

「安那其?」

「不要學我說話。」

「不要學你說話?」

「你是笨蛋嗎?」

「我是老虎。」

The Animal Manager and His Dreamscape

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“The sound of a hippo

“The voice of a hippo?”

“Concerning anarchy.”

“Anarchy?”

“Stop repeating everything I say.”

“Stop repeating what you say?”

“Are you stupid?”

“I’m a tiger.”

I liked the Wu Ming-yi-style magical realism conjured up by the title of this poem, however, the non-sequiturs kind of threw me off and I didn’t really vibe with the discussion between the disembodied voices. It’s possible I’m missing something in the interpretation of the poem and welcome any alternates in the comments section. I have to say that I’m not really a fan of Under Milk Wood-style stream-of-consciousness poetry that relies on dreams.

Ye Yu-ting has published two volumes of poetry, the self-published A Père David’s deer in peppermint-colored sleep (一隻麋鹿在薄荷色的睡眠裡) and The Invisibility in the Details (鉅細靡遺的透明) which was illustrated by Shiho So (a Taiwanese illustrator living in Tokyo). Ye graduated from the Chinese masters program of National Central University in Taiwan, where she headed up a poetry society. She has been the recipient of the Ye-Hung Female Poetry Prize and the Council for Cultural Affairs (now Ministry of Culture) poetry prize. For more information, you can see a profile of her here.

MRT Poetry: ‘Amid a Cloud of Dust’ by Hsu Hui-chih

微塵眾中

在無窮的時空裡
每一個人
都只是微塵
微塵而已

我是一粒塵埃
輕如孢子
隨著命運
隨著風
沾上你的衣

(節錄)

Amid a Cloud of Dust

In endless time and space
Each person
Is just a speck of dust
But a speck of dust

I’m a piece of lint
Light as a spore
Swept by fate
Swept by the wind
On to your clothes

(An extract)

Shaky hands, sorry!

Hsu Hui-chih (許悔之) is a poet and calligrapher born in 1966 in Taoyuan in Taiwan. He graduated from National Taipei Institute of Technology (now National Taipei University of Technology) in chemical engineering and has worked as the editor of the supplements of the Liberty Times and China Evening News and the chief editor of literary monthly magazine Unitas.

As you might be able to tell, I was feeling kind of sheepish when I took the photo, hence the blurriness, so had to Google parts of the poem to make it out. That’s when I discovered that the poem has a final verse that wasn’t included in the MRT version as below:

微塵眾啊
微塵眾
如此眾中
遇到你

In a cloud of dust
Amid the dust
In this swirling mass
I came upon you

I liked how the poet was able to convey that sense of wonder at finding a kindred spirit at a certain point in the infinity of time and space. There’s also a recognition of the relative insignificance of humanity in terms of the universe, similar to Carl Sagan’s reflections on planet earth being portrayed as a pale blue dot in the Voyager 1’s pictures of the solar system:

Luo Fu’s ‘Beyond the Smoke’ 洛夫的〈煙之外〉

煙之外

在濤聲中呼喚你的名字而你的名字
已在千帆之外

潮來潮去
左邊的鞋印才下午
右邊的鞋印已黃昏了
六月原是一本很感傷的書
結局如此悽美
──落日西沉

我依然凝視
你眼中展示的一片純白
(節錄)

Beyond the Smoke

I call your name amid the crashing waves, but it’s already a thousand leagues away

Ebbing and flowing
The left footprint is only afternoon
The right footprint is already dusk
June was originally a book of sorrow
With such a poignant ending
──The setting of the sun

I’m still staring
At the pure white cast in your gaze
(Extract)

Luo Fu (洛夫) was one of the pen-names of Taiwanese poet Mo Luo-Fu 莫洛夫 (originally Mo Yun-duan 莫運端). He was born in 1928 in Hengyang in Hunan (then part of the Republic of China). He changed his name due to the influence of Russian literature. He joined the Navy and moved to Taiwan in 1949. He graduated from the Political Warfare Cadres Academy in 1953 and was assigned to the Republic of China Marine Corps base in Zuoying. He founded the Epoch Poetry Society along with Chang Mo and Ya Xian in 1953. He was later stationed to Kinmen where he met his wife. Towards the end of the Vietnam war he was appointed to the Republic of China Military Advisory Group, Vietnam, as an English secretary. After his return to Taiwan, he graduated in English from Tamkang University in 1973 and retired from the army in the same year. After retiring from the army he started teaching at the foreign languages department of Soochow University, before moving to Canada in 1996 but moved back in 2016 when he was diagnosed with cancer and he died in Taiwan in 2018 after receiving an honorary doctorate from National Chung Hsing University in 2017. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 for his 3000-line poem ‘Driftwood’ (〈漂木〉).

‘Later Years’ by Wu Sheng 吳晟的〈晚年〉

晚年

面對世界
即使仍有些意見
但在庭院大樹下
閒看花開謝草木生長
往往忘了爭辯


漫長的旅途,如此倉促
來不及認清多少世間道理
盡頭將隨時出現
如果還有什麼堅持
我只確知
我雖已老,世界仍年輕

Later Years

Although I still have my opinions
When it comes to the world
Under a tree in the yard I watch
Flowers bloom and wither and plants grow
I’m often so at ease I forget to voice them

This long journey undertaken with such haste
Allows no time to really understand the world
The end could come at any time
If there’s anything upon which I still insist
It’s that I’m sure
Even though I’m old now, the world is still young

Wu Sheng (吳晟) is the pen-name of Wu Sheng-hsiung (吳勝雄), a poet originally from Hsichou (溪州) in Changhua County in Taiwan. He serves as a senior advisor to the Presidential Office. After graduating from the Department of Livestock of the Taiwan Provincial Institute of Agriculture (now National Pingtung University of Science and Technology) in 1971, he taught biology at a junior high school in his hometown. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in literature from National Dong Hwa University in June of 2020. The majority of his work has been modern poetry, although he also writes essays. He also has an orchard in Hsichou named after his mother (純園) which is home to 3000 native trees; he lectures part-time at Providence University.

Chen YuHong – ‘Remembering’ 陳育虹的〈記得〉

Remembering

The sea
Continues to smile
The buoy of memory moves amid the mist and coral

Slowly on the beach
A tern writes the first line
I write the second

Some Autumn
Words

記得


繼續微笑
記憶的浮標在霧與礁石間移動


沙灘緩慢
燕鷗寫下第一行字
我寫了第二行

一些秋天的

MRT Poetry: ‘A Red Pine at Dusk’ by Lin Yu 林彧的〈黃昏的赤松〉

黃昏的赤松

回家的路上,我撥算鳥聲
每滴啁啾都在雕刻著你的寂靜

你伸出的枝枒正準備迎接
黑幕垂降,樹臂要拋扔星斗

轉入晚年的小徑,我知道
黃昏不昏,赤松赤心

A Red Pine At Dusk

On my way home, I count the bird calls on my abacus
Every chirp and tweet carves your silence

You extend your branches in welcome
To the fall of night’s black canvas, your limbs want to toss away the stars

As you turn on to the path of your Autumn years, I know
Dusk isn’t dusky, the red pine has a keen red heart

Lin Yu is a poet from Guangxing in Lugu, Nantou. He was born in 1957 and after a career working in journalism and editing, he returned to his hometown to run a tea shop.

‘Primary Colors of Changing Times’ by Dakanow 達卡閙的〈滄桑的原色〉

28811250_10103761779497509_1292582355_o

滄桑的原色                                               Primary Colors of Changing Times

所以                                                           So
為了某種無解的陷阱                                For some inescapable trap
我到現在還活著                                        I’m still living now
活著將自己當作一隻獵物                         Living as prey
然後不知名的受傷下去……                       Then suffering nameless wound after wound…

This is quite a melancholy poem from an aboriginal singer/songwriter, poet and actor Dakanow, born in 1965 in Pingdong. He’s released several albums and now lives in Dulan in Taidong County.

MRT Poetry: ‘Better a Song’ by Bai Ling 捷運詩:白靈的〈不如歌〉

14114702_1245265735507831_663432045_o

This time it’s a reader contribution. My former co-worker snapped this poem on the MRT and sent it to me. The poem was written by Chuang Tsu-huang (莊祖煌 pinyin: Zhuang Zuhuang) who goes under the pen-name Bai Ling (白靈). He was born in Taipei’s Wanhua District in 1951 to a family from Fujian in China. After studying chemistry in Taiwan and teaching for a while, he went to the US to study a master’s at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He is currently a professor at National Taipei University of Technology and at one time took part in a grassroots poetry collective, including a period as the editor of a grassroots poetry publication. He has won a plethora of prizes for his poetry.

不如歌 Better a Song

平靜的無,不如抓狂的有
Better a manic something over a tranquil nothing
坐等升溫的露珠,不如捲熱而逃的淚水
Better a tear bubbled up in heat over a dewdrop awaiting the warmth
猛射亂放的箭矢,不如挺出紅心的箭靶
Better to land the bullseye than to loose an arrow in haste
養鴿子三千,不如擁老鷹一隻
Better a single eagle than to raise three thousand doves
被吻,不如被啄
Better to be pecked, than to be kissed