Flies
Sleeves rolled up, squatting in horse stance
Over the chicken tail in my lunch
Ready for the advancing grand army of chopsticks
Cockroaches
A pair of antennae stretch out from a cracked corner
to test
the thickness of the iron wall
Lychee Giant Stink Bugs
For three seasons they had been training
to compete with the summer stink of
prisoner souls
【胡蠅】
撆手ńg 、屈馬步
挺挺徛踮雞尾錐頂懸
聽候千軍萬箸來拍擂台
【虼蠽】
兩支雷達伸出壁角裂縫
試探
鐵牆的厚度
【臭腥龜仔】
修煉三季的功力
佮犯人的靈魂
比臭
The Taiwanese language, considered as a dialect of Chinese, had been repressed for decades until censorship in Taiwan was completely lifted and nationalism began to be challenged. Through self-education with a Taiwanese-Chinese dictionary he was given during his time in prison, Pek-êng Koa found a new purpose in his life. Bugs in Prison compares lives found in the prison, where as the author once remarked, “Sometimes the value of a prisoner is lower than that of these bugs”.
Bugs in Prison is an excerpt from his collection of poems “Fireflies Within The Walls” (awarded and published by the Dept. of Culture, Tainan City in 2010). Each poem consists of only three short lines. The translation is much longer, but the translator fails to condense the sentences without sacrificing the faithful representation of the atmosphere and circumstances the author created. The discrepancy arises from the author’s unique and unrepeatable style, as well as the differences between the English and Taiwanese.