Fragment
In summer slit open a plump, cool lotus root
taste the sweet juice frothing up from its orifices.
On the rooftop a dense and scorching pressure crowds inward
but . . . it's vague and speechless like the long wind.
The great many cruelties of life have gone ignored for ages.
—and what is loathsome is more or less similar
for all that is vulgar, keep strumming your shiny eccentricity!
The Moon
The tenderness of self-love can go to hell!
The locust has the locust's rationality, the dagger the dagger's
reasoning: in this unavoidable life
are so many who can finally forgive themselves—
rainwater soaks the tree roots, lightning
bisects the whetstone in the foothills in a flash
my question is: if god did just as he pleased
would the moon still whisper its secrets to wicked people?
Translation and a Daoist Song
1. Translation
In life we throw up too much dust.
Death ends this reprehensible behavior.
If we talked out the thoughts and mirages that bind us
how could it be better than getting tipsy
and half-undressing, lying there in the half-light
of the tree's shade sunbathing?
2. Daoist Song
Life like light on dust, death like dust in light.
A particolored fantasy. The fish flesh getting cold.
Waking in the Night, Flipping the Light on. The Switch is a Bit Cold.
Perhaps you will write a line of poetry, perhaps.
In your tears is the tail of a steelhead trout, you say: the night is molting—
a mustard seed!
It's not good to be too sweet-sounding. It's not.
In early summer you'd just dug out an enormous listening station from
the green jade
of your body: how could it be unrelated to past and future flowers? Better
let your poems know.
Brief Sentences
Another day gone.
I have consumed all the substances I am supposed to, but
have not contributed that single small breath
of cool air.
Like a salmon in the dark and frothing water
gently releasing its floral mutter.
Floral Mutter
Ya Shi
translated from the Chinese by Nick Admussen
Read the original in Chinese, Simplified
These poems are from a collection of Ya Shi's that I've recently assembled and translated, and for the title of the whole book I'm considering Floral Mutter, a phrase from his poem "Brief Sentences." This poem gets to the heart of one way I encounter Ya Shi's work: as a generous donation of cool air from the animal-poet to the animal-reader. I see his poems as sources of oxygen underwater—unexpected relief from the asphyxiating mix of stricture, predictable expectations, and artlessness that we swim through every day. So when I translate, I pick some mix of his most widely loved work and the pieces I need in my life the most. This suite of five poems is mostly made up of the latter; the work that I found hanging in front of me like an air bubble, uncannily defying gravity, shimmering in the dark.
The serious pursuit of free play and the production of much-needed conceptual space also plays a big role in the way Ya Shi and I collaborate in revising poems. The thinking that goes into a Ya Shi poem is voluminous, orderly, and strange, such that when I get a rare chance to sit with him and ask questions, each exegesis echoes across all the pieces I've translated, and I end up rewriting about twice as much as he suggests. For me, it's a brutal linguistic marathon; somehow, though, it never feels like work. We drink tea and smoke cigarettes and eat as well as we possibly can (in Sichuan, this means that we eat as well as anybody in the world can). These poems don't flinch from pain, but they were written by someone who believes in joy, and I hope I've been successful in bringing some of their joy to you.
The serious pursuit of free play and the production of much-needed conceptual space also plays a big role in the way Ya Shi and I collaborate in revising poems. The thinking that goes into a Ya Shi poem is voluminous, orderly, and strange, such that when I get a rare chance to sit with him and ask questions, each exegesis echoes across all the pieces I've translated, and I end up rewriting about twice as much as he suggests. For me, it's a brutal linguistic marathon; somehow, though, it never feels like work. We drink tea and smoke cigarettes and eat as well as we possibly can (in Sichuan, this means that we eat as well as anybody in the world can). These poems don't flinch from pain, but they were written by someone who believes in joy, and I hope I've been successful in bringing some of their joy to you.
Ya Shi is the author of four collections of poetry and one of prose, including the celebrated collection《青城诗章》(The Qingcheng Poems) and, most recently, a special issue of the alternative magazine《锋刃》(Blade) devoted to his work. He has won the Liu Li'an prize and served as the editor of several influential unofficial poetry journals. His work has appeared in English translation in Poetry International, New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry, and is forthcoming in the New England Review. A graduate of Beijing University, he currently teaches mathematics at a university near the city of Chengdu.
Nick Admussen is an assistant professor of Chinese literature and culture at Cornell University. He has translated the work of Ya Shi, Zang Di, Genzi, and Liu Xiaobo. His original poetry has appeared in Fence, Blackbird, and Sou'wester. He blogs about Chinese poetry in American life for the Boston Review. His first book, on contemporary Chinese prose poetry, will be published by the University of Hawaiʻi Press.
