Beijing morning. Iron Lion’s Grave.
It has snowed all night.
Stepping on a field of white
walking deep into the campus,
suddenly –
sounds of attack.
A commando of crows
at my feet filling the deck
of this aircraft carrier.
Oh, white snow black crows
like God’s own picture,
make me rub my hands,
breathe at my fingers
before rolling it up
to take it away.
December 2012
Tr. MW Jan. 2013
北京，铁狮子坟的早晨
刚下过一夜的雪
我脚踏一片洁白
朝着校园深处行进
忽然间
扑楞楞几声响
一个飞行小队的乌鸦
落满我脚下航母的甲板
哦，白雪乌鸦
仿佛上帝的画作
让我搓着手
呵着热气
准备将它卷起来
带走
2012。12
This post is from Yi Sha’s Sina blog. Iron Lion’s Grave 铁狮子坟 is the bus stop at the east gate of Beijing Normal University 北京师范大学。 White Snow Black Crows Bai xue wu ya 《白雪乌鸦》 is the title of a novel by Chi Zijian 迟子建 that came out in 2012, about a plague outbreak in Harbin 100 years ago that claimed over 60.000 lives. Didn’t know about this novel when I first saw the poem, only after I had translated it. Don’t even know if Yi Sha thought of the novel when he wrote the poem. There was some sarcasm on Weibo about the “new” aircraft carrier in the last two months. Pictures of dilapidated schools in the mountains without even benches to sit on, but the national aircraft carrier is introduced. See also this post by Chinaavantgarde. I recently translated Spring Snow 《春雪》，another poem by Yi Sha that was printed in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
标签： animals, art, beijing, birds, china, god, military, poetry, snow, winter
中国大好き 
2月 5, 2013 6:49 上午 |
Reblogged this on china Avant-garde and commented:
and let’s not forget the poets:
this is a fine addendum to my previous post, for whatever we say about China’s aircraft carrier, it is quite a symbol, drifting in uncertain waters.
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3月 4, 2013 10:33 下午 |
[…] Shi Ming-zheng 施明正, Li Khin-huann 李勤岸, Song Tik-lai 宋澤萊, Zhan Che 詹澈 and Yi Sha 伊沙. All of it has to do with […]
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3月 21, 2013 1:00 上午 |
[…] New Century Poetry Canon, compiled by Yi Sha 伊沙 And here are two more pictures. Waiting for a miracle, doing crazy things in the meantime. Like […]
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5月 28, 2013 1:38 上午 |
[…] Beijing), the female migrant worker poet Zheng Xiaoqiong (Dongguan), famous iconoclastic poet Yi Sha (Xi’an) and last but not least Zhao Siyun, whose poem for June 5th was introduced by Michael […]
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