Fang Miaohong
ONE KIND OF FATHER
When I was small,
my dad would point at beggars by the road,
asking me, is that your dad?
I always got angry and refused to answer.
He didn’t know,
each time other students pointed at him,
asking me, is that your dad?
I also didn’t want to say yes.
2023
Translated by MW in January 2024
有一种父亲
方妙红
小时候我爸
经常指着路边的乞丐问我
那是你爸爸吗？
我总是生气地不说话
他不知道
每当我同学指着他问我
那是你爸爸吗？
我也不想说是
Fang Miaohong
MOURNING
I call my father on WeChat.
He is at the mourning hall for my aunt,
in four days she will be buried, he says.
I say oh,
then I feel a little like crying.
“I broke up with that guy!”
My father hesitates,
“Can’t talk now,
full of people here.”
2023
Translated by MW in January 2024
灵堂
方妙红
跟我爸视频
他正在伯母的灵堂
他说伯母四天后出殡
我哦了一声
然后有点想哭
“我跟那个男生分手了”
他迟疑了一下
“不说了
这里都是人”
Fang Miaohong
VOLUNTEERS
Volunteering at the social services station,
kids climbing into my lap,
hanging onto me
like stray cats at the rescue service.
One child keeps to himself,
sits motionless.
I go and ask him,
“Don’t want to play together?”
“No, you will leave soon anyway,
when you are gone, we get to eat.”
2023
Translated by MW in January 2024
志愿者
方妙红
去福利院做志愿者
孩子们像救助站
的流浪猫一样不停地
钻进我们怀里
挂在我们身上
有一个孩子
一动不动地坐在椅子上
我走过去问
“不跟我们一起玩吗？”
“不用，你们马上就会走
走了我们就开饭了”
These three poems are typical for “colloquial poetry”, they talk of daily life, they speak directly of personal experience. Speaking directly, up to a point where the speaker, the “I” in the poem, may feel uncomfortable, not very happy about it, but it has to come out. The person inthere has ambiguous feelings, and this ambiguity is where the poetry comes from. Fang Miaohong writes all the time, every day, recording life, her feelings, her dad comes up often, for example. One poem is called My Bicycle, and it is really just about a bicycle, but the feelings and the ambiguity are plainly there. Two weeks later there is a poem called Going Back To Look For the Lock, about the same bicycle, but now there is another person. You can read these together, or each one alone, or one month of poems, or one whole year, it will be like reading a story or reading a novel. I was reading the poems from January 2023. There are poems called Volunteers, Love, Puberty, Very Fast, Knowing Silence, Washed By The Sea, you are drawn into a world. There is no pretence at all, just this direct voice. The poems are short, the story becomes more detailed when you read on, but you can stop any time and still feel the poetry.
“有一种父亲”、”灵堂”、”志愿者”，这三首都是典型的口语诗，谈日常生活，直接说出个人经历。直接说，一直到诗中的我也许不舒服，并不是得意，还是要说出来，甚至可以说有了那种暧昧的感觉才变成诗。方秒红每天都写诗，好像都是记录生活，经常有情感，经常有父亲等等。”我的自行车”就写那个车，好像没有别的，情感和暧昧还是很强。两周后有了“回头找锁”，也是自行车，现在有人，两首一块读好，单独也好，读一个月或者一年就是像一本非常好的小说。”志愿者”，“爱情”，“青春期”，“很快的”，”会心的沉默”，“大海的洗礼”，都是2023年一月的诗，连起来读读出一个世界，读下去越来越丰富。没有什么做作，都是那么直接，每一首也不长。
标签： daughter, death, family, Fang Miaohong, father, life, love, mourning, poetry, relationship, relationships, volunteers, 方妙红
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