Bai Hua, born in China in 1956, one of the central literary figures of the Post-Misty generation in China. His first collection of poems, Expression (1988), found immediate critical acclaim. After a silence of more than a decade, he began writing poetry again in 2007 and won Rougang Poetry Award in the same year. A prolific writer of critical prose and hybrid texts, Bai Hua is also a recipient of the Anne Kao Poetry Prize. Currently living in Chengdu, Sichuan, he teaches at the Southwestern Transportation University.
Karlstad 三月，神在疾走……
清晨，那发抖的宁静在回避什么？
Karlstad! 高大的男神和女神一闪而过。
疾走……Stads 旅馆门前。
街道无人；冰湖、欧洲大地的积木房屋无人……
当1797年的石桥搭上了2011年的心脏
白桦树赤裸着密麻的神经令我惊恐。
三月，有一间织布工厂从森林里冒出来
Klassbols!
请！不停地喧腾起下午的艺术。和谐里
另一个神也在疾走——
我看见一位中国科学家正手提通讯
大步流星地经过瑞典的天空。
March in Karlstad, Where God is Speeding Past
Early morning, what is the quivering calmness evading?
Karlstad! Tall gods and goddesses flash by
speeding… before the City Hotel
Empty streets; ice lake, European container houses with no one…
As a heart from 2011 walks on a stone bridge of 1797
the naked birch tree nerves terrify me
In March, a textile factory springs out of the forest
Klässbols!
Please! Stir furiously the art of afternoon. In harmony
yet another god speeds past —
I see a Chinese scientist holding an iPhone
crossing the Swedish sky like a falling star
中华
万古江河从未废掉一个声音
你听，我听
那声音
传出一个令人流泪的名词
这专属于眼泪的名词
无论以什么方言说出
都令人感觉软弱、卑贱
从不被人类同情
当然，它也太苦难了
苦难到了不值得世界同情
而这个名词却让我
每每听到时，都疼痛到发抖
China
Through all ages the river never disposes of a voice
you listen, I listen
that voice
echoes a noun that brings tears
this noun that solely belongs to tears
no matter what dialect it speaks
makes us weak, inferior
never once sympathized by mankind
Of course, it has suffered too much
unworthy of sympathy in this world
yet this noun
each time I hear it, I’ll shiver in pain
暮春
这是暮春的一天
我刚写完日记：
北方正刮着风沙
孩童在飞跑
鸟儿被逼回森林
这并非温驯的一页
但老人们却停止了生气
植物们更忘了自己
而我已经无事可干
只专心地观看这一切。
Late Spring
A day in late spring
I’ve just finished my diary:
Sand from the wind in the north
children are racing
birds are forced back into the woods
This isn’t a docile page
yet the elderly are no longer angry
even the plants have forgotten about themselves
I’ve nothing to do
but to observe all these intently
Translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
(Translator Fiona Sze-Lorrain writes in French, English and Chinese. Author of Water the Moon (Marick Press, 2010), she is co-director of Vif éditions and one of the editors at Cerise Press.)
PoetryEastWest 