New Generation: Poems from China Today

\ \ \ \ \ Chapter One\ \ \ Che Qianzi\ \ \ Born in Suzhou,\ Jiansu Province, in\ 1963, Che Qianzi now\ lives in Beijing. He is\ the author of several\ collections of poetry\ and prose, including\ Three Primary\ Colors. His latest\ works are the\ poetry sequences\ "Numbered Musical\ Notation" and "Hand-Copied\ Paperback."\ the latter of which is\ presented here.\ \ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback\ \ \ 1. Background\ Preface: For many years, a secret society in Southeast Asia has\ been searching for a book entitled Hand-Copied Paperback.\ It is said that with this book in hand, one would have the\ secrets of running the country at their fingertips.\ \ However, at the same time, there exists another secret society\ which does not believe such a book exists. But in order not to\ disappoint the book-hunters, they have forged a Hand-Copied\ Paperback.\ \ This Hand-Copied Paperback contains excerpts copied from\ other works. Cards. One-sided. Unrelated to either Hand-Copied\ Paperback that the book-hunters look for or to those\ making the forged book. Crucial. Urgent.\ \ \ \ Stylistic musical works culture is a kind of copying process in\ it there are many slips of the pen and parts left out when we\ open our eyes and want it is just like the "descendants passing\ off modern works as ancient."\ \ \ \ Wittgenstein says: "Culture is a kind of hobby, a hobby\ founded on copying."\ \ \ \ What a person copies may be what he himself left out\ \ \ My head knows nothing of what my hand is writing down\ \ \ Culture,—handwritten forms.\ \ \ Afterword: fake book fake money fake man;\                 true theory true story true stuff\ \ \ Appendix: For my part the Hand-Copied Paperback is completed\ — or rather half completed. For the other hall I will\ invite 99 people with different levels of education to copy it.\ \ \ \ The copying process will be as follows:\ The second person copies my original; the third person copies\ the second person's; the fourth copies the third. And so on.\ When it is time, I will make a comparative study of the 99\ copies.\ \ I expect to find some interesting variations and ways of transformation.\ The deadline set down for the process is ten years.\ \ \ 2. Text\ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback India\     egg egg shell carrying stones stone blocks\                                   piled up into a temple\              dust billows up in the process\                         gently floats\                  sulfure epic aerial combat\ as armies of monkeys march along roads as armies of\ monkeys march along treetops hand-copied tomes, portray\ the witness\ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback Tibet\                                  amazing clouds\                                  amazing Gesang\             yellow robes, plumpen in the sun\ yellow crown love-songs\ \ \ fresco:\ high up, only approached by crawling\ \ \ black and white documentary\ better than a dozen actors, sorcerers enter the city\                         black and white documentary:\    the blue mountains and green rivers in Chinese culture\    not the blue and green people sitting or flying in Chinese\      culture\    we danced the whole night the whirling tube whirling and\      whirling\ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback Japan\   beauty of rice paper craftsman meticulously upholding\                             the art of paper making\   who are you? using false names/kana\   real grass, __ half the alfalfa field is purple\   upright character, unrestrained behavior\   "solitude"\ father and brother build a wall at home, double-petaled cherries\ bear flowers but not fruit\ interested in sorcerers at the same time\                                 red white cherries geisha\ \ \ sage seeds\ vanity grass\ the monk's tale\    cannot help being amazed at the blankness of a piece\      of paper\ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback Ceylon\ \ \     that which can be destroyed by fire, can be destroyed by\       water\     the most fragile can best preserve humanity\                                          out of convenience\     towering athenaeums, library domes\     dream of a manuscript, era of printing\       from then on, facilitates exchange\ racer no. 185 first reaches the history of paper\ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback Thailand\    mistakes coax people into storing filled with mistakes high\      prices\    smart people's height grows, people grow, lazybones\    shorten their bodies\    lazybones short short riders\                       passes over the shoulder:\                           squatting on the shoulder\                           a cat or a lion\ \ \ lingering warmth\ \ \   monkey trainer in the warehouse doorway, the one on duty\    hooks the ladder\ leaning against a wall, bits of a broken glass stuck on it\                     like a dentist\ \ \     "open your mouth, and legs, hmmm, ok."\ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback Burma\ \ \    Burmese child shy Burma\    9-year old adult strict monastery rules silver pagoda tops\    like an antenna wave long wave short dangerous big ships\    women carry on their heads men holding chickens\                     frequency modulation stereo\    three dimensional cartoons small bird and the king\ Buddha crosses river, does not get wet, not that the river is\      not wet\ \ \ gold buddha clay buddha are all buddhas\ good man bad man are all men\ truth\ lies\ \ \ are all formed of words,—real genius never reveals himself\                              photos are only phantoms\ \ \ take photos to keep the image, record words to keep the\       sound, read books to keep the mind\ children do not study hard: stay down to keep up\       golden sail on huge green waves\       children's visual lunch\ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback Nepal\ \ \     ready for dinner, both hands on the map\ \ \ choice goods: elastic bands are made of imported\    three-splice\      high power rubber bands and seven-colored soft satin\ ordinary goods: elastic bands are made of imported\    two-splice\      rubber bands and soft satin and embroidery\ \ \    not too tight\ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback Vietnam\ \ \ lurid, lurid botanical garden\ a steamship passes by peels away half an orange\ lurid, lurid orange peel\ reveals plain style flesh, steamship, shipbow, in Hanoi\                                               raging waves\                                 botanical garden\ \ \ Hand-Copied Paperback, rolling snowballs\ little snowballs, big snowballs, little snowballs\ little thaw, big thaw\ water temperature lower than that of snow, clay urns\      filled with plum pollen\ knowledge: a secret joy\ \ \ 3371 ......out of Shiguan China......(Analects · 30)\ 3372 ......+ that city wall + at that time ......\ 3385 ......must be assailed......\ 3394 all these......\ 3414 ......+ the people ++......\ 3426 ......to no avail (Analects · four six)\ 3438 ......+ house its sun man (Yin · one two)\ 3476 ......gold (Yin · three)\ 3477\ 3519 ......down+++ ......\ 3553 have +......\ 3570 · three......\ 3571 · five......\ 3579 ......+ its place......\ 3580 ......+ the state......\ 4028 ......inner wall too (Analects · two five)\ 4486 ......eating fish...... (Six · one)\ 4488 ......as husband......(Yin · four)\ 4489 ......+ take......\ 4548 ......+ yin yang\ 4557 ......+ ten......\ 4675 ......+ position......\ \ \ \ Chen Dongdong\ \ \ Chen Dongdong\ was born in Shanghai\ in 1961. He is a 1984\ graduate of Shanghai\ Teachers' College.\ and currently he\ works in the resource\ room of the Shanghai\ Association of\ Industry and\ Commerce. His\ poems have appeared\ in a number of\ literary magazines in\ China, including\ New Observation,\ China, Poetry,\ Shanghai Literature,\ Writers, Modern\ Chinese Poetry,\ and First Line.\ \ \ \     Snow-Covered Sun\ \ \ Bits of broken glass on snowy ground,\ frozen red stones,\ on a white night the flowers that bloom indoors—\ all these are branches in your hand.\ \ \ Naked, she faces your yard from the valley,\ arms soft as the river,\ breasts, full buttocks, sweet belly, V stroke\ of dark hair—\ all these are branches in your hand.\ \ \ The snow-covered sun\ hangs on the trees\ like a five-year old's watercolor.\ \ \ In your yard she dances,\ collarbones shining,\ ankles shimmering like the moon,\ scented sex between lips and tongue—\ all these are branches in your hand.\ \ \ The snow-covered sun\ burns like a red stone,\ like a glass children gaze through\ at the clouds.

Introduction12Preface21Hand-copied Paperback35Snow-Covered Sun43Finally45The Vast Land49When We Walked into the City50You Come from Far Away51The Cold Spirit of Snow52The Last Bottle of Good Wine53Missing the Encounter54Spring That Is Beyond Definition55High Land56Under a Tree57Flowing Water58The Past Is a Cup from My People59Edge63Black Rails66Scene A67Individual71Since the Creation of Words72Permission74Mayfly's Journal77Autograph Book80As I Search for a Language83To Poets86Exile Admonition95This Age Has TB96A World97Settling98From "Words and Objects"101The Sound of Chopping Wood102Stuck in Place103Coins Flung in Four Directions104Young Prophet105This Is Not the Last106Betrayal109Gluttonous and Hungry111Sold Out112Just Call Me by My Nickname115Black Night116Iron119Words120Railway Station121Syntax125Of Flesh and Spirit126Crossing Essex128No Sense of Direction130From "The String of Beads, Fate"135Tibet137For Haizi143Books145Birds147Bats in the Twilight149Interplay153The Passage to Heaven154Nostalgia155From Serial Poetic159When the Train Crossed the Yellow River167Neighbors168That Year169The North Wind Was Blowing171I Write What History Cannot Write172This Fall This Year173In Praise of Work177The Fence178I Overheard Them Talking about the Source of the Pearl River179Power Outage180Thank You, Father183Mouse186From "The Brown Notebook: Rejecting Metaphor"188Cafe Song191Proof196End197Raindrop201Chinese Honey202Poetry207Revolution208Hidden Arc213Doubt214Punctual Arrival215To Autumn219Poem221The Meridian Gate225The Wheat Reaper226To Die in a Sitting Position227Burning the Red Soil229The Well of Imperial Concubine Zhen230What's in My Heart231Old Bowl232Notes on the Translators233

\ Arthur SzeMany American readers are by now familiar with the Misty generation poets in China, but far too few readers are aware of the diversity of Chinese poetry since then. Wang ping's anthology is the first to feature leading poets of the new generation through translations that are collaborations with many fine contemporary poets. This is an important and moving collection.\ \ \ \ \ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ This very accessible and important new anthology presents poems by two dozen poets writing in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, an event that provides a deep, resonant undertone to the work which comes through even in translation. This is the generation of poets directly following the dissident "Misty School," best represented by Bei Dao in the States; most were born in the early '60s and are thus in mid-career. The preface by editor Wang Ping (herself a poet of this generation, represented accordingly) delves into the nexus of the spiritual and political, noting how the Communist Party, in an attempt to revalorize itself in the minds of the citizens, "undertook a strategy that has more or less continued until today, launching one `socialist spiritual civilization' movement after another to stave off `bourgeois liberalization'." The paradoxes of such a plan are well documented by these poets, most all of whom express a yearning for a new day while emitting signs of the exhaustion of being at the head of a centuries-old civilization. Liu Manliu's medition on time; Che Qianzi's beautiful examination of memory and politics; Yan Li's wryly propulsive "Serial Poetic" ("The artist often leans out, stretched/ between two extremes/ shouting for help with exquisite slogans"); Zhai Yongming's feminist, flaneur-esque "Caf Song" and the powerful poems of Jia Wei, are all standouts. Among the many translators are David Shapiro, Lyn Hejinian, Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, all working in collaboration with Ping. While the translations are uneven, the breadth of the work is impressive, and the essential humanity of the writing is both and smart and attractive, and feels necessary. (July) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.\ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsNEW GENERATION ( paper Jul. 19; 236 pp.; 1-882413-55-5; paper 1-882413-54-7): The Shanghai-born editor, who left China for the US in 1985, gathers together 24 young poets, all born in the '50s and '60s most still living and sometimes managing to publish under the current repressive regime. Writing in the shadow of the Tiananmen Square uprising, these avant-garde writers reject the poetic ideals of their predecessors, the so-called "Misty poets," who themselves rejected the social realism of Maoism in favor of conventional romanticism. Poet after poet in this vital anthology goes beyond notions of truth and beauty for the grittier realities of everyday life; darkness pervades the experimental forms here, though the poets lack the cynicism of their Western counterparts. Many of these plain-speaking writers struggle with language itself and its relation to objects and silence. The very readable translations, supervised by Ping (who worked with numerous American poets), provide a real sense of the variety of subjects, and each poet is represented with a sample poem in the original, ranging from the confessional verse of Jia Wei about abortions and excrement to Xue Di's scream of exile, with powerful poetic manifestoes from Liu Manliu and Yu Jian as well.\ \