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"Subtle and compelling, Bai Hua is among the best in contemporary Chinese poetry."—David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University
"Fish"
Unfathomable, the fish can't sing
swimming from silence to silence
It needs things, it needs to speak
but it stares blindly at a stone
The strength of endurance is too precise
Senility urges it to walk the road of kindness
What is it? Image of a people
or an act of soundless immersion?
The face of grievance veers toward shadow
the silence of death toward error
Born as metaphor to clarify a fact:
the throat where ambiguous pain begins
Considered the central literary figure of the post-Obscure (post-"Misty") poetry movement during the 1980s, Bai Hua was born in Chongqing, China, in 1956. After graduating from Guangzhou Foreign Language Institute, he taught at various universities before working as an independent writer. His first collection of poems, Expression (1988), found immediate critical acclaim. A highly demanding writer, Bai Hua has a small but selective poetic output: between the mid-'80s and 2007 Bai Hua wrote fewer than one hundred poems, most of which continue to command a large audience across China. After a silence of more than a decade, he began writing again in 2007. This bilingual selection is a comprehensive overview of Bai Hua's writing career.
Fiona Sze-Lorrain writes and translates in French, English, and Chinese. Her recent work includes Water the Moon (Marick Press, 2010). Co-director of Vif Éditions and one of the editors at Cerise Press, she is also a zheng concertist.
Fiona Sze-Lorrain: Fiona Sze-Lorrain writes and translates in French, English, and Chinese. Her recent work includes Water the Moon (Marick Press, 2010). Co-director of Vif e´ditions and one of the editors at Cerise Press, she is also a zheng concertist.
Introduction
A Prelude to Bai Hua’s Lyricism — 5
I Precipice
To An Ill Boy 13
Sea Summer 16
Or Something Else 19
Goodbye, Summer 21
Precipice 23
White Headscarf 25
II Summer is Still Far
Summer is Still Far 29
March 31
Afternoon 33
Book 35
Fish 37
En Route 39
A Republican Afternoon 41
III In the Qing Dynasty
Cloud Diviner 45
Emperor Li Yu 47
Dusk 49
In the Qing Dynasty 52
IV Jonestown
Autumn Weapon 57
Pain 59
Bones from My Singing 61
Mass Summer 63
To Osip Mandelstam 66
Beauty 69
Jonestown 72
Hatred 75
This Harsh Cold is Worth Commemorating 77
V Memories
Remembrance 81
Memories 83
Rider 85
A View of Jiangnan 87
Summer Read: Biography of a Poet 90
Summer, 1966 93
Seed 95
Ten Nights Ten Nights 97
Education 99
Wheat: In Memory of Hai Zi 101
The Poet’s Medical Record 103
Life 105
VI The Man Clothed in Birch Bark
Performing Spring, Growing Pears 109
Reality 111
The Man Clothed in Birch Bark 113
Love Campaign 115
Future 117
Spring Begins 119
Family 121
New Year’s Eve 123
Scripture of Aging 125
The Old Poet 127
VII Hand Notes on Mountain and Water
Choice 131
Ancient Tune of Guangling 133
Song of Cotton 135
Hand Notes on Mountain and Water 140
A Short Film on Two Eras 145
In the Ape King’s Cave 147
Under the Mandarin Tree 149
VIII Fading, Fading
Curtain Call 153
Jialing River 155
Two Days in Huangshan 157
Brewing 159
The End 161
Summer Lyric 164
Wind Says 168
Character Sketches 172
Primary School Life 175
from The Book of Tibet
Impermanence (II) 177
Fading, Fading 179
The Tibetan Man 181
Notes 184
Interview
The Enigma of Time, Cities and Voices:
Conversing with Contemporary Chinese Poet Bai Hua 188