幾何
你看
我把一整座花園
野放了：松鼠環頸雉
兔兒草菅芒冇骨消
把園子裡的幾何圖形
一一破解：一些重複的
三角形多邊形球體錐體
既然是秋天我重新
界定這個世界
鏡子裡我的臉並不對稱
光影透露一些卻隱蔽更多
並不聚焦
這是一個臨界點
既然秋天既然迷鳥候鳥
季節的欒花菊花一首
短歌如朝露既然
下弦月漂在水面像敲開的
蛋殼到了夜晚到了夜晚
鳥巢蕨無性繁殖
星星校對著點字文
時間用藥過量時間的蝙蝠
倒掛著用喉結傳送音波
用耳朵窺看我的世界
接近臨界
羅漢松
i
他趺坐
融入地衣
冥想的丹青
比貓更安靜
乾淨，更接近
雨的乾淨
石頭的安靜
蟲鳥不驚
時空有無
歧義
多義
一株貓科植物
我的羅漢松
ii
季節沒有痕跡
以冬，以春
以飛天，去地三尺
施寶蓋……疊翠
重巒的擬態
以持矛的少年在希臘
對立式平衡一座
青銅雕
經典，經得起消磨
蝶影掠過
日照的白紙
沒有痕跡
車聲人聲犬吠聲
两首诗
陳育虹
Listen to a recording of "Geometry" read in the original Chinese by the poet:
Over my long collaboration with Diana Shi, our translational philosophy and method have proved consistent. Since the process of translating good poetry remains for us an empirical, partly intuitive art, we are often uncertain what may translate well until the work is underway. In selecting any poetry, our first criterion is literary excellence, but also translatability, an aspect not always evident at once. Chen Yuhong’s splendid poems, accessible yet sophisticated, travel well, and should appeal to a broad range of readers.
Regarding the textures and substance of her poetry, Chen’s urbane sensibilities expand their international reach. Her knowledge of music—its instruments, terminology, and composition—provides a richly metaphorical lexicon for conjuring mood, angles of thought or light, animal presence, tides of summer, spring, or fall. Similarly, her grasp of time’s elasticity invests many of her poems. While her imagery might now deliver the concrete evocation and sensuality of physical existence, it may next glide over the threshold of transcendence, then return to earth. Chen’s world can be alive with blossomings, flowers that punctuate or announce a season, their fragrance rich or evanescent, transient or perennial. In contrast to interminable summer heat or winter drizzle, the sudden caprice of fate or spirit may arrive with its own derangements. This poet acknowledges how the unexpected may terrify or astonish, how the surreal draws strength from both material and abstract realms. The force of her imagery carries almost unmediated through the original to the translation.
If Chen inherits an eastern tradition, she remains fully conversant with the West. Her poems encounter the hotel rooms of Edward Hopper, the rigid limbs of ancient Greek kouroi, the nerve-gassed children of Syria, Akhmatova’s Russia, and the Vancouver seashore. Yet her universe, however tangible, retains at its core a profound solitude, perhaps like the shadowy interior of a violin, an emptiness where the strings’ vibrations resonate and amplify.
Regarding the textures and substance of her poetry, Chen’s urbane sensibilities expand their international reach. Her knowledge of music—its instruments, terminology, and composition—provides a richly metaphorical lexicon for conjuring mood, angles of thought or light, animal presence, tides of summer, spring, or fall. Similarly, her grasp of time’s elasticity invests many of her poems. While her imagery might now deliver the concrete evocation and sensuality of physical existence, it may next glide over the threshold of transcendence, then return to earth. Chen’s world can be alive with blossomings, flowers that punctuate or announce a season, their fragrance rich or evanescent, transient or perennial. In contrast to interminable summer heat or winter drizzle, the sudden caprice of fate or spirit may arrive with its own derangements. This poet acknowledges how the unexpected may terrify or astonish, how the surreal draws strength from both material and abstract realms. The force of her imagery carries almost unmediated through the original to the translation.
If Chen inherits an eastern tradition, she remains fully conversant with the West. Her poems encounter the hotel rooms of Edward Hopper, the rigid limbs of ancient Greek kouroi, the nerve-gassed children of Syria, Akhmatova’s Russia, and the Vancouver seashore. Yet her universe, however tangible, retains at its core a profound solitude, perhaps like the shadowy interior of a violin, an emptiness where the strings’ vibrations resonate and amplify.
Chen Yuhong was born and educated in Taiwan, and lived for some years in Canada before settling in Taipei. Essayist and author of eight poetry collections, winner of many awards for both poetry and translation, she is among Taiwan’s most prominent poets. Her latest volume of poems, 霞光及其它 (Half-light), appeared in 2022 from Hung-fan Books. The Swedish Institute awarded Chen its 2022 International Cikada Prize in poetry.
Among collections Chen has translated into Chinese are poetry by Louise Glück, Anne Carson, Margaret Atwood, Jack Gilbert, and Carol Ann Duffy, plus a French novel by Matthieu Ricard. Her related awards include the Liang Shih-chiu Literary Translation Prize. Chen’s own poetry has recently appeared in French, Dutch, and Japanese volumes. The poems here are from Impossible Paradise, her translators’ just completed US National Endowment for the Arts Literature project.
George O'Connell is the co-translator with Diana Shi of contemporary Chinese-language poetry. He has received numerous honors for his own poetry, including Atlanta Review’s International Grand Prize and the Pablo Neruda Award, as well as two US National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowships. He served as Fulbright professor of creative writing and literature at Peking University and National Taiwan University. Among his translations with Diana Shi are Darkening Mirror by Wang Jiaxin (Tebot Bach, 2017); Crossing the Harbour: Ten Contemporary Hong Kong Poets (Pangolin House, 2017); Passages: Thirteen Contemporary Taiwan Poets (Bookman Books, 2022); and Capriccio on the Way to Buy Salt: Selected Poems by Han Dong (Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing, 2024).
Diana Shi is the co-recipient of two US National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Felllowships and has collaborated since 2006 with George O’Connell in translating many prominent western and Chinese-speaking poets. In 2012 they launched Pangolin House, an international journal of poetry and art. Her extensive translations from American poet Arthur Sze’s The Glass Constellation appeared in 2023 from China’s Guangxi Normal University Press as 玻璃星座. She recently completed assembling and translating into Chinese 我只要少許 (I Wanted Only a Little), a volume of her selections from American poet Jane Hirshfield.
