Image credit: Sufyan Jalal, from Withering Exhibition

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South    North

Living in the North    prickled with mountains

As well as many spacious places

I am actually more used to surveying tiny things

With my stocky, compact body

In a lower place    in various valleys and dales

 

Those more minute than I are mole crickets, ants and some rats

That crisscross the humble underground

Producing sounds penetrating into another world

Those more calm yet timid than I are wild beasts

That egress and ingress the mountain woods

Chased by poachers    and on a moonless windy night

Get lost occasionally in the wilderness

 

There are times when I scale the mountains    look high up

Stray in the wilderness    just like a wind

And look afar into the place where mists rise

Nevertheless I will not think highly of this universe

Nor will I get totally immersed in bewilderment

 

Staying in the North all year    I witness eye-openers everywhere

When the North-loving migrant birds return again

They bring tidings of the South    where

Heavy rainstorms have caused disastrous floods this summer

And many people have perished in the horrid heat

 

My valleys and I    even the entire North

Can’t help falling into prolonged quietude

Thinking of many inherently low Southern places

Our hearts mourning    start to plummet heavily

Towards the South

 

And like a bird whose heart ruptures abruptly

Or a never-weighted steelyard weight

Are descending from the celestial arc

Speedily

 

 

Balloon and Emptiness

Earth is like an unexpected balloon

With a solid inside    and an empty outside

Floating in the endless emptiness

 

Earth wafting in the boundless emptiness like a balloon

With a heavy head    heavy wings    and a heavy heart

Has so easily bumped a plane down

And smashed an eagle like blowing off dust

And even tossed an inadvertently toppled hill

Into the ocean like dumping trash

And thereby returned the emptiness

They once occupied pointlessly

To the infinite hollowness

Which only the universe can match

 

Therefore rendering Earth wafting like a balloon

In the limitless emptiness

A shape as sensitive yet solid as a heart

And the truth of the entire emptiness

Verifiable by a balloon

Harder to rupture than a heart yet explodable

By excessive internal emptiness

 

 

I Have Captured Another Monster

In these mountains    the tigers have all perished

Even the stealthily prowling wolves have vanished

The legendary old black bear eating devils instead of men

With its gall removed by an indomitable hunter

Shuddering with a whole lot of uncontrollable fat

Has fallen to his death    

Rolling down the mountain like a giant ball

 

Afterwards a man clambers up the mountain range

To capture monsters    runs up and down for ages

And lives in the darkness of strata and the chasms of giant boulders

Like a savage    and also a deity of the mountains

Whilst the legendary monsters are mysteriously latent

For many years    this monster hunter

Exhausts his wits in vain

 

One day this monster catcher    indefatigable and unflinching

Came to the city like a monster at high noon

Emanating the foul smell of a monster    I had encountered only once

Looking at his monstrous appearance    I felt somewhat embarrassed

“I have captured another monster!”

The words I had been thinking for so long

Could not be uttered in the end

 

 

Horse

You are the one

Born in an era with no one riding horseback

Destined to be solitary for a lifetime

 

Foreordained to be a wild horse    racing around

Indifferent to meadows    with no purpose

Running until you cannot run any more

 

One with talents but not values    starving

Galloping    hunkering down

Indolent and free in the wilderness

 

One watches wildflowers

Too tired even

To take more bites of grass

 

You are the one

Becoming an old steed

Miserably kithless and kinless    boney nag

You still cannot stop

Still run over and over and over

Ceaselessly

 

A wild horse like you

Has the destiny of a horse

 

A horse’s kismet 

南方    北方

生活在北方    有许多高山

也有许多空旷的地方

我其实更习惯于在低处    在不同的山谷里

用我身体的细小和结实

丈量那些小事物

 

比我更细小的是蝼蚁和一些鼠辈

它们在卑微的地底下出入

发出通向另一世界的响动

比我更从容也更胆怯的是野兽

它们在山林里出入    被盗猎者追赶

月黑风高    偶尔也在旷野里迷失

 

我也有上山的时候    向高处仰望的时候

也会像风一样

迷失在旷野里    眺望远方至迷雾升起处

但我并不会高看这个世界

也不会让自己陷入迷惘而不能自拔

 

长年待在北方    满目都是让人长见识的事情

当那些喜欢北方的候鸟再一次归来

带回南方的消息    那里

今年夏天暴雨成灾

热浪中死了很多人

 

我和我的山谷    甚至整个北方

禁不住陷入了长久的沉默

想到那里很多地方生来就很低

沉痛的心    便重重地向着南方

开始下坠

 

仿佛一只心脏突然裂开的鸟

像没有称重的秤砣

从天空快速地往下降落

 

 

气球与空虚

地球就像一只令人出其不意的气球

里面是实的    外面是空的

在无边无际的空虚里飘荡着

 

在无边无际的空虚里飘荡着的气球一样的地球

它的头是重的    它的翅膀是重的    心也是重的

不费吹灰之力就碰落了一架飞机

碰碎了一只老鹰

甚至将不慎撞倒的一座山扔垃圾一样扔进了大海

从而把它们不得要领占领过的空虚

重又还给了无边无际    只有宇宙才配得上的空虚

 

从而使气球一样在无边无际的空虚中飘荡的地球

有了心脏一般既敏感又敦实的形状

和比心脏还要难以憋破的

但却能被空虚所憋破的气球所验证出的

全部空虚的真理

 

 

我又捕捉了一个怪物 

这一带的山上    老虎早已死光了

鬼鬼祟祟的狼也已消失多年

传说中吃鬼但不吃人的老黑熊

在被不屈的猎人取走了黑熊胆以后

抱着一大团失控的肥肉瑟瑟发抖

像一个巨球一样滚入山中摔死了

 

之后这个人来到山上

捕捉怪物    很多年中他四处奔走

居住在地层和巨石裂开的暗处

像个野人    也像个山神

传说中的怪物一个个秘而不显

很多年中    这个捕捉怪物的人

费尽心机却一无所获

 

这个捕捉怪物的人    不屈不挠的人

有天正午曾像一个怪物一样来到城里

浑身散发着怪物的骚味    与我有过一面之交

看着他的怪物模样    我有点尴尬

“我又捕捉了一个怪物!”想了很久的这句话

我临到终了也无法出口

 

 

你这个人

生在人已不再骑马的年代

命里注定要孤独一生

 

命里注定是一匹野马    到处跑

对草原不以为然

没有什么目的的野马

一直要到跑不动的时候

才会停下来

 

一匹有才无德的马    饿马

爱跑的马    喜欢懒散而自由地

卧在野地里

 

看野花的马

累得要死

连草都不想多吃几口的马

 

你这个人    你老了的时候

成了一匹老马的时候

孤苦伶仃    皮包骨头的马啊

依旧停不下来

依旧是跑啊跑啊

跑个不停

 

你这匹野马

就是马的命

 

马的命

Translator's Note

Yan An’s poems are highly experimental, unconventional, and unique according to the standards and traditions of Chinese culture, in terms of their aesthetic value, contents, and philosophical denotations. As a pioneer in modern westernized Chinese poetry, Yan An has completely transformed Chinese readers’ concepts and understanding of poetry through his unique viewpoint. Fitting his rather unconventional way of thinking, his poems do not typically contain any of the Chinese elements traditionally and commonly depicted by other Chinese poets, such as Chinese cultures, traditions, vernacular language, Chinese-style objects, architecture and scenery, and when they do, they are addressed from unique perspectives. For example, in these four poems of his, only one Chinese object, a steelyard weight, is exploited to depict the speed of the falling hearts, which in turn depicts the intensity of mournful hearts. Therefore, his poems can transcend the boundaries of nations and cultures, reaching a wider audience across the world. A story lies within each poem and behind Yan An’s boundless imagination, along with his sentiments and views on life, people, society, and the universe. 

His language is intense and abstract. Like his other poems, these poems are rich in literary devices, such as similes, metaphors, personifications and parallelisms. These literary devices have well served their purpose in the Chinese versions. Nevertheless, in their English versions, some transcreation techniques have to be exploited to retain the same or similar effect. For example, we have used addition, omission, translocation (a technique of relocating one word, phrase or even sentence from one line to another line), and a few other techniques, to make the translation succinct, readable, iambic, and/or poetic.

All in all, we have attempted to bring something new and foreign into English in order to enrich the language, to help English poets and readers unleash their creativity and imagination, and to begin to bridge American and Chinese ways of thinking and cultures. Also, we have endeavored to create some novel transcreation techniques to help with any future translations of Yan An’s poems. For example, the technique of changing from one part of speech to another is used in some lines of the four poems to make the translation more coherent and logical.


Chen Du
Xisheng Chen

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