POETRY
Conversation by the Autumn Lake
β POEM by Ma Yongbo
(Translated from Chinese)
The external world is also the inner world, for example,
On a lake darkened by pine trees, a man counts his beard,
Then proceeds to count blue delphiniums,
Thus he sees the bow of the boat wedged into the sandy shore:
Our way of entering the inner world seems a bit crude,
But perhaps no one will get hurt there.
What will you find there?
Incomplete shells, footprints? Or some weird branches?
From the distant sandbank comes the lonely cries of wild ducks,
Like abandoned tin cans,
Separated, far away, almost dull,
Occasionally one breaks free from a small cloud shadow,
Only to land in another cloud shadow again.
Why do you call these your inner world: the autumn lake, the leaves, our wrinkled ears, thoughts between breath and wind?
Β Although no one is satisfied with the shape of themselves in everything.
Does this mist come from the lake or from your eyes?
You canβt see me. Iβve been silent,
But you think Iβm still talking,
Saying what you imagine I should say.
The gurgling of water becomes clearer now,
Is there an outlet in the lake, flowing to a place below?
How to imagine the shadow of the lake, the shadow of a poem,
Or the forgery of a poem.
Sand.
Dogs.
The sun shines for a moment,
This makes sense.
Your self is a stone, grass, a fish in the water
Or perhaps a stick, a number, an island;
Then who are you? Break free from the cloud shadows in your heart,
See the boat cut through the green surface of the water,
Hear the rustling flutter of wild ducks before diving into the inner world.
β¦.
(Self-Translation fromΒ CHINESE)
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Translations of POEMS with arresting imagery, polished language, emotional impact, and lyricism without pretension. The work of the POETS who received high accolade for their superb and stupefying POETIC WORK.
Ma Yongbo
Ma
Yongbo was born in 1964. He is a Ph.D, representative of
Chinese avant-garde poetry, and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry. He
has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 included 9
poetry collections. He focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry
and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams
and Ashbery. He has recently published a complete translation of Moby Dick,
which has sold over 600,000 copies.
Ma
Yongbo teaches at Nanjing University of Science and
Technology. The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing
Centre, 2024) comprising 1178 poems, celebrate 40 years of writing poetry. He
is the editor-in-chief of the βChinese Regional Poetry Yearbookβ and the
βNortheast Three Provinces Poetry Yearbookβ.
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