Every time you get to thinking this time doesn't count
Every time you come to feel this one now isn't real
The air is shot with the sound of silk ripping
You run inside as fast you are able to
Hide yourself
Peeking through a crack
Softly say: "Next time, OK."
Just as everything begins to happen you become conscious
Your consciousness is taking the happening
Out of what's happening
But for that one day someday you are able to say:
"Well, actually . . ."
Or maybe
"Once . . ."
Every time you find yourself earnestly believing:
"Next time will count far more than this time."
Which is strictly speaking
The next time of the next time
Or the next time preparing to rush out
You shout:
"Doesn't count!"
Just as you think of making these objects move by themselves
On account of the fact you're beginning to fidget
Sure enough it all begins to happen
And so we see
A chair moving towards us all by itself
"Still doesn't count."
You say ever so languidly:
"Even that doesn't count doesn't count."
Now These Objects Will Move by Themselves
Hsia Yü
translated from the Chinese by Steve Bradbury
Read the original in Chinese, Traditional
Read the Chinese, Simplified translation
Listen to the original poem read by the poet with background 'noise' by Yan Jun:
Hsia Yü's formal inventiveness, sumptuous musicality and fascination with the pleasures of the flesh and what the late, great Roland Barthes called the "erotics of reading" have made her one of the most admired and beloved poets in the Chinese-speaking world. But these same qualities make her one of the most difficult poets to render into English. I am far too embarrassed to admit how many hours I worked on this particular translation except to say that it was a great deal longer than the poet spent writing the original poem. Not that I'm complaining, mind you; I must have shown her half-a-dozen drafts before I finally ironed out the wrinkles, and she never once complained and (as an "added-value feature") even agreed to record the original poem with the Beijing performance poet and noise musician Yan Jun, who also mixed and mastered the recording.
Hsia Yü is the author and designer of six volumes of groundbreaking verse, notably Pink Noise (2007), a bilingual collection of English-language poems and computer-generated Chinese translations printed on crystal clear vinyl in pink and black ink, and, most recently, Poems, Sixty of Them (2011). 'Now These Objects Will Move by Themselves' is from her fourth book of poetry, Salsa (1999), which is now in its eighth print-run. The appended performance of the Chinese poem was recorded by Hsia Yü and Yan Jun in Taipei in late December and subsequently mixed by Yan Jun in Beijing.
Yan Jun is a Gansu-born, Beijing-based performance poet, writer, and self-professed "improviser and sound hypnotizer," who curates the monthly music events at the Beijing contemporary art centre UCCA and is one of the principal organizers of Mini Midi, China's annual experimental music festival.
Steve Bradbury translates the work of contemporary poets writing in Chinese. His most recent book-length translation, Hsia Yü’s Salsa (Zephyr Press, 2014), was short-listed for the Lucien Stryk Prize. His current project, a translation of Hsia Yü’s Poems, Sixty of Them (2011), received an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship last summer.
