At midnight in the far corner of Yunnan

the dark national highway was suddenly lit

by a car light   a rabbit or squirrel

scurried across the snow-covered ground like escaped jailbirds

climbing over the Berlin Wall or

stopping to open their red mouths a cunning smile

long ears as if just grown

a flash through the heart thought some meaning

would come out but there was nothing to say

till another time another rabbit

flickering by   ghostly

then nothing

only speed

 

 

 

 

 

 

the people planting potatoes are infected by dawn

infected by the sun as it rises

quickly they work     the world is quick at this time

quickly the dew dries     quickly the field voles scamper off

at times like this you need to be quick     labourers

are quick to remove their jackets     to bare their arms

a whole day’s work depends on a good morning start     this is how

primary school teachers educate their students     they

react with speed     the invisible world in their classrooms

the morning’s Chinese lesson     is understood on paper as

a few     set phrases left over from yesterday

at dusk     the world slows down

the ranks of the earth slow down facing westwards

formations of corn-fields and low hills

formations of rivers and forests

formations of villages and sunflowers

everything slows down facing westward

all those shadows dragged over things slow down

like silk wrapped round the body of night

slipping away, bolt by bolt

the potato planters     carrying their tools

mingle with the kids coming home from school

they walk slowly on the uplands

home ahead     they don’t worry about time

the children dawdle

no more homework to do

the adults dawdle

because the potatoes have all been planted

they’re all so slow

as if the earth had somehow got into their bodies

but those things planted at speed

have in no way slowed down     nor have they ever speeded up

incapable both of speed and slowness

they’ve simply begun   and all they have to do is grow

is be     from morning to night

from spring to autumn

neither hurried nor slow     right to the very end

 

1999

 

 

 

 

 

we said nothing

during the blackout

in silence we waited in the dark

for the return of the lunatic

who lives inside the on-off switch

like a man waits at home

for his wife

 

 

 

 

after a shower of rain

I pull on a jumper

muttering to myself

it’s getting chilly     autumn’s on its way

oh yes     autumn’s coming

just like an old woman

mumbling about a dog she once lost

 

 

 

 

 

night     an enormous back

no emperor can order it

to turn around!

I’m always longing to see

its other side

so I lean my own back

up against it

the way I used to lean against my mother

as a kid to make her face me

 

 

 

 

 

the black piano lid

resembles the coffin of a very great man

concealing his bad habits, his finger nails

my daughter’s terror is expressed

in her blank expression

her fingers never long enough

nervously

at the end of every lesson

she suddenly smiles

 

 

 

 

 

the National Sports Training Facility

is built on the shores of Dianchi Lake

its waters are polluted already

rubbish no one cares about all that gym equipment

is turned to face death

it’s already too late to change

the direction of such huge funding

people go on competing taking deep breaths     jumping     flexing muscles

doing sit-ups     balls flying up into

an air of ambiguous quality

just so that they can live longer

 

 

 

 

 

 

he let the cat out of the bag:

it was hot last night

and Cuihu Park was packed with couples

mooching round the lake

scores of them     whispering in each other’s ears

“You couldn’t fit a needle anywhere between them”

“What the hell were you doing there?”

“Were you the sewer or the sewn?”

Lothario smiled but kept quiet

 

 

 

 

 

On its Saturdays

the washing machine

revolves with pleasure,

wearing away the owner’s clothes–

wearing away the brightness,

wearing down the fibers,

rubbing out the stains.

All this wear

keeps us clean

day after day.

Blessed be the woolen sweater

on gentle cycle

that wants to match her red skirt.

 

 

 

 

 

Yu Jian (Chinese: 于坚;), born 1954, is a Chinese poet, writer and documentary film director. He is a major figure among “The Third Generation Poets” that came after the Misty Poetry movement of the early 1980s. His work has been translated into Bulgarian, English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Danish, and Japanese.

 

 

Born in Kunming, China, on August 8, 1954, Yu Jian’s schooling was interrupted in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution. He became a factory worker in 1969, where frequent power failures enabled him to read voraciously. He started writing poetry (free verse) at the age of twenty. He studied in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, at Yunnan University, and was a literary activist, organising events and editing publications. His career as a published poet took off when his poem “6 Shangyi Street” was published in China’s leading poetry journal Shikan in 1986. He published a controversial long poem File Zero in 1994, then a collection of travel sketches and impressions of daily life Notes from the Human World in 1999, and another long poem Flight in 2000.

 

 

Honours and awards

2016: An English-language translation of File Zero was included in the Chinese literature anthology The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature.

2010 – “Home”, poem, in cooperation with Zhu Xiaoyang won Taiwan’s 14th United Daily News New Poetry Prize (2010), Taiwan’s Genesis Poetry Magazine Prize and the Lu Xun Literary Prize.

2003 – “Turquoise Bus Stop”, documentary, was considered for the 2003 Amsterdam International Documentary Filmmaking Festival’s Silver Wolf AwardHome (2010).

The German edition of Yu Jian’s poetry collection File Zero won the German Association for the Promotion of Asia, African and Latin American Literature’s “World Experiences” Prize. ( From Google)