Dead Sea
this is your street this is your accent
this is your flesh minced meat
a dead sea to stuff a bun
your own stink made to order
a pasta wrapper radiantly flattens the sea’s surface
rolled flat again and again Harvest Home needs no fancy edging
dead bats rabbits deer expose small white bones
inform on running inform on breathing
sense of smell informs on molecule rallies flying through the sky
lungs inform on hidden blood-red data
on TV a fat face carved in relief slowly stammers every word
reads out informers in single file turning into faces patched with masks
steam’s fancy edging chases newly open bamboo steamers
charred-smelling fancy edging rises from disciplined haircuts
dead fishies drift with the tide with no high hopes of escaping underwater
there is no underwater in your world
all that is left is bare denuded salt
scorching rocky spindrift inside you
every morning changing channels of filth from far and near
switching off the heart that fish bone
this is your glory a spittle-drenched paper sealing strip
aid-built fancy edgings on all the empty cities
a sea slows down along with you gets old blinded
nothing has changed this place life is not exceptional
it’s a sin undiscardable punishment banquets
holding flat a vision of a bowl of bitterly salt rippling
your real name manufactures tears every drop
holds high official authentication from the Motherland
a ball of exploding sunlight splashes in the depths of a fat face
keeps rationing forever locked up DNA
wraps up tight gulps down the funeral urns’ generous affection
a colossal virus whispers intimately in your ear
Dead Sea
Yang Lian
translated from the Chinese by Brian Holton
Read the original in Chinese, Simplified
Yang Lian and I have been working together for more than 25 years now, and have published more than twenty books and pamphlets in that time. He grew up first in Berne, then in Cultural Revolution Beijing; I grew up first in Lagos, then in ’50s and ’60s Scotland: we have learned to bridge the gaps between us and speak with one voice through the strange ventriloquism that is poetry translation.
Some twelve to fifteen years ago, Yang was primarily interested in stretching the limits of language until he found a breaking point (see Concentric Circles, Bloodaxe Books, 2005). Since then, and especially in Narrative Poem (Bloodaxe Books, 2017), and Anniversary Snow (Shearsman Books, 2019), he has turned to a more personal poetry, exploring his own experience and reaching out to a troubled world. One of his major themes is the reconciliation of modernity with China’s classical traditions. His current work, of which Dead Sea is a good example, is possessed of a saeva indignatio which he has turned on government responses to COVID-19, the popular upheavals in Hong Kong, and the global climate crisis. His poetry is a dense tessellation of images, often hard for the translator to disentangle, which build and build to powerfully symphonic effect.
I have tried in my translations to keep something of the rhythms and sonorities of Yang’s rich Beijing speaking voice, as well as his deliberate attempts to create a ‘non-poetic’ diction, reminiscent in its way of Hugh MacDiarmid’s use of academic English jargon in the massive and magisterial In Memoriam James Joyce. I hope I have succeeded in giving the reader a glimpse of this impassioned, richly-textured and original verse.
Some twelve to fifteen years ago, Yang was primarily interested in stretching the limits of language until he found a breaking point (see Concentric Circles, Bloodaxe Books, 2005). Since then, and especially in Narrative Poem (Bloodaxe Books, 2017), and Anniversary Snow (Shearsman Books, 2019), he has turned to a more personal poetry, exploring his own experience and reaching out to a troubled world. One of his major themes is the reconciliation of modernity with China’s classical traditions. His current work, of which Dead Sea is a good example, is possessed of a saeva indignatio which he has turned on government responses to COVID-19, the popular upheavals in Hong Kong, and the global climate crisis. His poetry is a dense tessellation of images, often hard for the translator to disentangle, which build and build to powerfully symphonic effect.
I have tried in my translations to keep something of the rhythms and sonorities of Yang’s rich Beijing speaking voice, as well as his deliberate attempts to create a ‘non-poetic’ diction, reminiscent in its way of Hugh MacDiarmid’s use of academic English jargon in the massive and magisterial In Memoriam James Joyce. I hope I have succeeded in giving the reader a glimpse of this impassioned, richly-textured and original verse.
Yang Lian began writing as a teenager in the 1970s, when he was sent down to the country. He is one of the founding members of the influential Misty School of poets (Menglong Pai). Since the 1980s, he has become known for his book-length poem sequences, which display a profound understanding of classical Chinese poetry, and which attempt to forge links between modern society and the depth and richness of the classical tradition. He became an exile in 1989, after the Tiananmen massacre, when he was in New Zealand. Since then, he has forged a reputation as a unique voice in world literature. He has published twelve collections of poetry in Chinese, and his work has been translated into more than thirty languages. He now lives in Berlin.
Brian Holton translates poetry and prose from modern and classical Chinese into English and Scots. He has published a dozen books of Yang Lian’s work, most recently, Anniversary Snow (Shearsman Books, 2019), Venice Elegy (Edizioni Damocle, 2019), and Narrative Poem (Bloodaxe Books, 2017). His collection of classical poems in Scots, Staunin Ma Lane, was published by Shearsman Books in 2016. He makes regular appearances at conferences and literary festivals, and has lectured at universities in the UK, Europe, the USA, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. He has also won prizes for his translations and his own original poetry.
