Donald Finkel (1929–2008)

A nice collection of poetry from China’s Democracy movement in the late 80’s and early 90’s, though a little uneven at times – of the seven poets featured, Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, and Shu Ting stand out. Surprisingly optimistic and strong, when the lyrics pop they really pop.

Favorites:
“The sky is grey.
The road is grey.
The buildings are grey.
The rain is grey.

Out of the dead grey void
two children walk,
one bright red
and one light green.”
- Gu Cheng

From Answer, by Bei Dao:
“Now I come to be judged,
and I’ve nothing to say but this:

Listen. I don’t believe!
OK. You’ve trampled
a thousand enemies underfoot. Call me
a thousand and one.”

From Love Story, by Bei Dao:
“After all, there’s only one world for us –
the height of summer.
Yet we go on playing children’s games
with grown-up rules,
heedless of those fallen by the roadside,
heedless of the ships that have run aground.
…
This is no longer a simple story.
There’s you and me.
And there are other people.”

From Capital “I” by Gu Cheng:
“Oh, I laugh at death, that ragged curtain
which will never come down on my miracle play.
I’m all humanity, stalking the long corridors of time,
climbing the multicolored cliffs of every continent.
Rivers carry my songs,
earthquakes scatter my bones,
rainclouds rinse my hair.”

The poem “Parting” by Gu Cheng:
“Now, as we cross this ancient threshold,
let’s have no farewells,
no valedictions.

They seem so hollow –
silence is best.
Reticence is no pretense.

Let’s bequeath our memory to the future,
our dreams to the night,
our tears to the sea,
and our windy sighs to its sails.”

And “Missing You” by Shu Ting:
“A multi-colored chart without a boundary;
An equation chalked on the board, with no solution;
A one-stringed lyre that tells the beads of rain;
A pair of useless oars that never cross the water.

Waiting buds in suspended animation;
The setting sun is watching from a distance.
Though in my mind there may be an enormous ocean,
What emerges is the sum: a pair of tears.

Yes, from these vistas, from these depths,
Only this.”

Lastly the poem “Notes on the City of the Sun”, by Bei Dao, which ends by describing life very simply as a “net”, an image which has stuck with me for twenty years. After all, isn’t everything interconnected?… (plus d'informations)