Pusaman: A Message for a Female Friend
Cold piercing winds invade windows.
Behind drawn curtains, I saunter down a corridor.
Moonlight seeps into my tall pavilion,
stirring thoughts of longing, here and elsewhere.
The nation’s troubles stretch endless.
Two women tread forth, furrow browed.
If you meet plum blossoms flowering early in the cold,
please send a branch of it this way!
Inscriptions on My Tiny Portrait (in Men’s Clothes)
A solemn gaze ahead: who is this before me?
A heroic spirit from a past life, resentful of residing in this body.
The physical form of a deceased self is mere illusion,
but the realm of the future is a real possibility.
Loathing that we didn’t meet sooner, let us unite:
heads raised, sighing at the times, spirits emboldened.
In the future, when I meet friends from bygone times,
I shall declare, I have now swept the world’s lofty dust away.
Reflections
written during travels in Japan
The sun and moon without light. Sky and earth in darkness.
Who can uplift the sinking world of women?
I pawned my jewels to sail across the open seas,
parting from my children as I left the border at Jade Gate.
Unbinding my feet to pour out a millennium’s poisons,
I arouse the spirit of women, hundreds of flowers, abloom.
Oh, this poor handkerchief made of merfolk-woven silk,
half stained with blood and half soaked in tears.
A Reply Verse in Matching Rhyme
for Ishii-kun, a Japanese friend
Don’t speak of how women can’t become heroes:
alone, I rode the winds eastward, for ten thousand leagues.
My poetic ponderings expanded, a sail between sky and sea,
dreaming of Japan’s three islands, delicate jade under moonlight.
Grieving the fall of bronze camels, guardians of China’s palace gates,
a warhorse is disgraced, not one battle yet won.
As my heart shatters with rage over my homeland’s troubles,
how can I linger, a guest abroad, savoring spring winds?
To Drink
Don’t hesitate to pay a thousand gold ingots for a treasured sabre.
To trade sable-skin coats for mere rice wine is also bold.
Hold tight to your valor, hot-blooded fellows;
your spilled blood shall transform into martyr-jade torrents.
Five Poems
Qiu Jin
translated from the Chinese by Yilin Wang
Read the original in Chinese, Simplified
Listen to the original read by the translator:
Qiu Jin’s poetry is often taught through the lens of revolutionary narratives and history, which has led her to be overlooked by literary scholars and translators alike. Her work follows the formal structure and rules of older poems written in Classical Chinese while simultaneously making use of modern vernacular Chinese, so her poems can be read as an example of the literature that marks the pivotal transition period between these two languages. The five poems that I have chosen to translate were all written relatively early in Qiu Jin’s creative career. The first poem subverts gender expectations by showing a narrator who is located in the home sphere, yet is concerned about the troubles of the nation. The second poem explores Qiu Jin’s complex relationship with gender identity and cross-dressing. The last three poems were all written around the time she travelled to Japan to study abroad, a pivotal period in her life when she started actively taking part in feminist activism and planning a revolution against the Qing dynasty. Together, these five poems demonstrate Qiu Jin’s development as a poet and the range of themes she is interested in, such as strong female friendships, gender identity, the role of women in modern China, and the heroic code.
Qiu Jin lived from 1875–1907 and was a Chinese writer, revolutionary, and feminist. Defying the gender expectations of her time, she grew up learning martial arts, sword-fighting, and horseback riding, and also acquired a traditional scholarly education. Later, she connected with other activists of China’s feminist movement, studied abroad in Japan, and returned home to join a revolution against the oppressive imperial Qing dynasty government and for women’s rights. When the uprising against the Qing dynasty that Qiu Jin took part in failed, she died a martyr and became the best-known figure of China’s early feminist movement.
Yilin Wang is a writer, editor, and Chinese-English translator. Her fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction have appeared in Clarkesworld, The Malahat Review, Arc Poetry, Grain, Contemporary Verse 2, carte blanche, The Best of Abyss & Apex, The Tyee, and elsewhere. Her Chinese-to-English short fiction and poetry translations have appeared in Pathlight: New Chinese Writing and Samovar respectively, while her English-to-Chinese poetry translations are forthcoming in Living Hyphen. Yilin recently completed her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and is a member of the Clarion West Writers Workshop 2020/2021.
