《满足》

by Ya Shi

何曾满足？何曾放弃敌意？
何曾因爱而无缘无故颤栗？
长星照耀州府   野草堆积身躯
我在一个红色政权下找到未命名的我
他的贫乏   正如他的细腻
他在晚上睡不着觉   睡着了
又把猫头鹰的眼睛睁得大大的——
月影向西   盗贼酣睡在他的梦里！

Content

by Ya Shi

Have I ever been content? Have I ever renounced hostility?

Have I ever trembled in love without reason or cause?

An old star lights the provincial government heaped bodies in the weeds

under a red regime I find a self as yet unnamed

he is precisely as incomplete as he is exquisite

At night he can’t get to sleep when he sleeps

he opens the eyes of the owl so wide —

the moon’s shadow goes west the thief has fallen asleep in his dream!

translated from Chinese by Nick Admussen

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Ya Shi is the author of four collections of poetry and one of prose, including the celebrated collection The Qingcheng Poems and most recently, a special issue of the alternative magazine Blade devoted to his work. He is a winner of the Liu Li’an prize, and has served as the editor of several influential unofficial poetry journals. His work has appeared in English 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 magazines like Fence, Blackbird, and Sou’wester. He blogs on Chinese poetry in American life for the Boston Review; his first book, on contemporary Chinese prose poetry, will be published with the Hawaii University Press.

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Poetry in Translation

《满足》

Content