13th century | 中国大好き

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CHARACTERS ON A FUSE BOX – 君儿 Jun Er – ZEICHEN AUF DEM STROMKASTEN

3月 14, 2024

Photos by Jun Er

Jun Er
CHARACTERS ON A FUSE BOX

On an old city street in Fengnan,
I saw a fuse box by the road.
It was painted in red.
In the middle of the paint,
there were two characters in black.
Very striking!
Framing them with my phone —
One stroke is rather feeble
in the second character of “freedom”.
But it can’t be ‘confession’!
Freedom is such a famous word.

Tr. MW, March 2024

Photos by Jun Er

电箱上的字
君儿

在丰南一条古街
见到一个路边电箱
箱体涂上了红色
油漆中间
有两个黑体字
十分醒目
手机定格出——
自由由字的一竖
写得很淡即使如此
也不会把它当成自白
自白怎么比得上
自由有名呢

Jun Er
ZEICHEN AUF DEM STROMKASTEN

In einer Altstadtgasse in Fengnan
seh ich am Rand einen Stromkasten.
Der ist rot lackiert.
In der Mitte
sind zwei schwarze Zeichen,
die fallen ins Auge.
Mit dem Handy festhalten –
beim zweiten Zeichen von “Freiheit”
ist ein Strich nur ganz schwach.
Sieht fast aus wie “Geständnis”.
Aber das kann es nicht sein,
Freiheit ist so berühmt!

Übersetzt von MW im März 2024

标签：characters, color, confession, electricity, freedom, history, Jun Er, Jun'er, meaning, memory, painting, picture, strokes, writing, 君儿
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IN A PAWNSHOP OF PAIN – On the poet Nan Ren 南人

2月 27, 2024

Dear poetry fans,
On Febr. 10, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published my article on the poet Nan Ren 南人 (scroll to p. 5; there are a few minor mistakes in the German article, I couldn’t see the final print version before it came out: the first poem has one line added; and Shaanxi became Shanxi). Last week I decided to write a version in English for the MCLC Resource Center.

This is a newspaper article, so there are no footnotes. The reference to Maghiel van Crevel was not included in the German print version. I have thought about many names of poets I should have mentioned, and other things I should have said. Anyway, such a publication in a major daily in Germany is a big success, a big deal in international exposure for current Chinese poetry. I hope you like it. Please comment, thank you!

Sources: Here is a link to the poems in the article including the original Chinese versions. And here are some of the paintings by Huang Li 黄丽 that accompany the poems in the book. The pictures look much better in the book. Nan Ren has sent them to me in high resolution. He and Xiron have authorized me to look for publishers in Europe and beyond. I hope to find publishers for the German speaking and for the English speaking Pawnshop. Here is a link to about 50 poems in Chinese with some translations in English or German. Here is a link to the announcement from last May, when the book was published in China. The publisher is Xiron Poetry Club, 磨铁读诗会. Xiron is a big publisher, led by the poet Shen Haobo 沈浩波. But Xiron is private and has to purchase an ISBN for each book from a state publisher. The state publisher is on the cover, Xiron Poetry Club is on the first page. Both have to avoid publishing anything that could get the book pulled or forbidden.

IN A PAWNSHOP OF PAIN

Nan Ren is a legend. He doesn’t like to say when he was born. 1970, found that somewhere. Not important. Nan Ren is a pen name. The nán of ‘south‘ and the rén of ‘person‘. What does that mean? His family comes from the south, somewhere south of the Long River, the Yangtse. Nanren, southern people, was the lowest stratum in the Mongol empire. The Mongols captured the south last, all the better jobs had been assigned to other people already. Almost every poet writing in Chinese has a pen name. People have more than one name in Chinese, even non-artists. It was that way in Confucius‘ times. And in the occident, people also had several names, at least prominent people, all the way from Homer.

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标签：beijing, book, books, censorship, 磨铁, 磨铁读诗会, Democracy Wall, disease, Europe, 西毒何殇, Fang Miaohong, FAZ, frankfurt, Germany, history, internet, Maghiel van Crevel, MCLC, media, memory, name, names, Nan Ren, newspaper, opera, pandemic, people, poetry, publishing, reality, self censorship, Shen Haobo, singing, society, time, wall, walls, writing, Xi'an, Xidu Heshang, Zhu Jian, 南人, 尹丽川, 方妙红, 朱剑, 椿树, 沈浩波
发表在 11th century, 13th century, 14th century, 15th century, 16th century, 17th century, 18th century, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 19th century, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s, 2023, 2024, 20th century, 21st century, April 2023, February 2024, May 2023, Middle Ages, poetry, Song Dynasty, Translations | Leave a Comment »

schlafnymphe – 陈兴 Chen Xing

11月 14, 2023

陈兴
现代诗八首

Chen Xing
SCHLAFNYMPHE

Herbstnacht am Teich,
Seerose fehlt.
Ist wohl verschlafen
versunken.
Hab sie nicht rausgefischt,
um nachzusehen.