{"id":16986,"date":"2022-06-23T15:40:20","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T19:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=16986"},"modified":"2022-09-11T17:00:14","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T21:00:14","slug":"three-poems-from-chinese-by-xi-chuan-and-yang-lian-translated-by-arthur-sze","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/three-poems-from-chinese-by-xi-chuan-and-yang-lian-translated-by-arthur-sze\/","title":{"rendered":"Poems From Chinese, Translated by Arthur Sze"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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After Wang Ximeng\u2019s Blue and Green Horizontal Landscape Scroll, a Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

by Xi Chuan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Green colors and blue colors flow together and form empty mountains. Some people are walking in them, but they\u2019re still empty mountains, as if the people walking there have no faces, but they are still people. No one should try to recognize themselves in these figures, or try to see the real mountains and waters of this world, nor should anyone think of trying to gain casual praise from Wang Ximeng. Wang Ximeng knows these small figures, and that not one is he himself. These are not his figures, and he cannot call out a single one by name. The figures acquire the mountains and waters, just as the mountains acquire the emerald and lapis, just as the waters acquire vastness and boats, just as Emperor Huizong got Wang Ximeng at eighteen years old, not knowing that Wang would die soon after he finished this thousand miles of rivers and mountains. The mountains and waters are nameless. Wang Ximing realizes that people without names are just decorations in mountains and waters, just as flying birds know they are insignificant to men\u2019s games. And the birds meet in the sky. Meanwhile, people walking in the mountains have their own directions to travel and their own plans. These small figures, in white, walk, sit at leisure, go fishing, trade, surrounded by green colors and blue colors, just like, today, people, in black, go to banquets, concerts, and funerals, surrounded by golden colors and more golden colors. These small figures in white have never been born and so have never died; just like Wang Ximeng\u2019s landscape utopia, they are immune to pollution and invasion, and that is worth careful consideration. So people who are far away from social controls have no need to long for freedom, and people who haven\u2019t been destroyed by experience aren\u2019t concerned about forgetting. Wang Ximeng let the fishermen have infinite numbers of fishes to go fishing; he allowed limitless waters to run out from the mountains. According to him, happiness means the exact amount of blessing so that, immersed in the silence between mountains and waters, people can build bridges, waterwheels, roads, houses, and live quietly, just like the trees growing appropriately in the mountains, along the margins of water, or surrounding a village, and surrounding people. In the distance, the trees are like flowers. When they sway, it\u2019s the time when the clear wind is rising. When the clear wind is rising, it\u2019s time for people to sing. When people sing, it\u2019s time for an empty mountain to become an empty mountain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter Wang Ximeng\u2019s Blue and Green Horizontal Landscape Scroll,  A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains,<\/em>\u201d by Xi Chuan, <\/em>translated by Arthur Sze, first appeared in Boston Review.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Memorial to a Tree at the Street Corner<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

by Yang Lian<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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last night     my poem moved to the street corner<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
enacted a tree     waved<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
small white flowers that suddenly turned their faces like ghosts<\/p>\n\n\n\n
screaming on tiptoe     permeated the air<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
ankle bones sparkled like crystals<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
the Tang dynasty like a lantern suddenly switched on<\/p>\n\n\n\n
already it\u2019s been so many years     along a red brick wall<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
I turned a corner it was the old country     at branch tip<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
familiar bloodshed finds again its stand-in<\/p>\n\n\n\n
throws out tons of quicksilver colors<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
but I am no longer scared of shriveling     since a spring night<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
washed away     at the tree stump the lingering sound of an electric saw<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMemorial to a Tree at the Street Corner,\u201d by Yang Lian, translated by Arthur Sze, first appeared in Gulf Coast.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Arthur Sze<\/strong> has published eleven books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems<\/em> (Copper Canyon Press, 2021) and Sight Lines<\/em>, for which he received the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry. He has also published The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese<\/em> (Copper Canyon Press, 2001) and edited Chinese Writers on Writing<\/em> (Trinity University Press, 2010). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Xi Chuan<\/strong> is a leading Chinese poet, essayist, and translator. He teaches at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. In 2012, Notes from the Mosquito: Selected Poems<\/em> was published by New Directions. A new collection, Bloom & Other Poems,<\/em> is forthcoming from New Directions later this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Yang Lian<\/strong> is another leading Chinese poet, editor, and translator who now lives in Berlin. His many books of poetry in English include Concentric Circles<\/em> (Bloodaxe, UK, 2005), Lee Valley Poems <\/em>(Bloodaxe, UK, 2009) and Anniversary Snow<\/em> (Shearsman, UK, 2019).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur idea in calling this the ‘Translator\u2019s Page’ is to show the ways and\/or languages in which a translator works. Monthly posts may include translations from different languages and styles and centuries. The connective thread between them is the ability of the translator to interpret cultures and time periods for the contemporary reader.\u201d \u2014Jonathan Wells, curator of The Translator’s Page<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Translator’s Page Archive<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After Wang Ximeng\u2019s Blue and Green Horizontal Landscape Scroll, a Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains by Xi Chuan Green colors and blue colors flow together and form empty mountains. Some people are walking in them, but they\u2019re still empty mountains, as if the people walking there have no faces, but they are still people. No […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16986","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16986"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17520,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16986\/revisions\/17520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}