Poems by Yu Xinqiao – translated by Denis Mair
Translator’s note: Yu Xinqiao styles himself a recluse, but I have never met anyone whose private life is so seamlessly interwoven with the activities of a large cultural circle. Evenings in his studio are a spontaneous salon, where artists, filmmakers, cultural officials and business people all meet. Yu is close to some of the most active figures of Beijing’s 798 Art District, where he often speaks on cultural trends. His finger is firmly on the pulse of his era, yet his poetry transmits an intensely personal response to the times. He is an incurable romantic, a man who often views himself through relationships with women, a man quietly connected to the world around him. – Denis Mair
Lock
At any given time or place
I only need one lock
Beauty is a lock
Kindness is a lock
Loyalty is a lock
Happiness is a lock
I make a request to these four locks
To keep my whole life locked up
And you… you too are a lock
I request that you lock me up firmly
Why is pain also a lock?
Why does a cloud lock half of me to the sky
And a forest lock half of me to the earth?
Why do all locks get opened?
Why do all locks finally get locked to emptiness?
At the Most Painful Place in the Chinese Language
Distant civilization flickers and gutters
Distant persons recede even farther
I batten down doors and windows
Even so an ocean
Overfills my drinking vessel
Once again I see gang fights
Among beautiful women
Feathers are strewn around my house
Once again the ugliest faces
Are getting extra layers of makeup
Our peaceful era gets ever more dangerous
The nobler you are, the more you have to clean up garbage
The lowlier you are, the more you have to gaze at stars
Once again
I stand amid clumps of grass
Roots entangled with roots
Once again
My pen-tip emits smoke
A stone spits up blood
At the most painful place of the Chinese language
I switch on the dawn
Fishing up Stars from a Rotten Orchard
The axe of poetry splits open a fogbank
Music fills a fisherman’s pensive hours
Your clarity still goes all the way down
Fleeting love flows away more swiftly
Yet you are still loyal
Though anyone in the world
Might hurl a slur at you
You never let it do a hair of damage
O solitary fisherman
You cast your long line of beauty
Amid all kinds of foolish ignorance
Your time has finally come
From a rotten orchard, you fish up stars
From hell’s maelstrom, you fish up heaven ∎
