Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Ma Yongbo was born in 1964, Ph.D, representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry,and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry. He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 included 7 poetry collections.He focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams and Ashbery. He recently published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over half a million copies. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre, 2024) comprising 1178 poems, celebrate 40 years of writing poetry.
Seeking My Sappho
I wish to find a poetess within another language
we could communicate without speaking
great poetry and bliss,
our poems will be no longer poems themselves,
but air and breath, satin
separating our bodies.
We will stand by the bright sea
or on a windy hillside.
Having known me, she no longer need other poets,
and I, I could even stop writing,
only gazing at what she shows to me.
To My Wife
Another night we spent together intimately, in the chill of Jiangnan
our window curtains are two patches of heavy darkness
mountains and rivers pinned with your golden brooch
two shabby quilts block the shy warmth
allow me, as a bookworm, to preach between husband and wife
to step upon a special path along the big heartbeat
let the moon balance the scent of plum blossoms, uniting everything
but how can that be, we were once separated by mountain after mountain
I am really comforting your strangeness in a spring dream
The Smell of Autumn
In autumn, I want to open all the windows
let in the smell from afar
smell of swamp decaying
smell of aged fallen leaves
burning hay and the fishy smell of plump roes
acid and the stinky smell of bean curd from the village mill
bleak smell of the inside of something ripen
behind walls thinner than the wind
I struggle to settle down my weary and heavy body
I want to forgive everybody, including myself
I want to love someone with my whole heart
I know she’ll open a window that’s been closed for a long time
let the sounds of the street float in
and I can smell the scorched scent of the sun in her hair.
Memories
If I could, I would restore every detail of that summer
the contours of each blade of grass,
the sunlit clarity of distant hikes,
seeds swelling toward ripeness.
If I could, I would rebuild the sandcastle
to imprison you within,
only to be trapped in the adjacent pit
(perhaps dug for the two of us alone!)
If I could, I’d ask the clouds to rise higher,
bearing the weight of the sky but never drifting away,
never shifting the stars or the ship sailing between them.
Those tiny houses must gather before nightfall,
like lambs herded back into their pen,
so no one would be left alone.
If the sunlight burned brighter,
I could return to noon the shimmering blue sea,
return to the air the summer’s oppressive clouds,
and to your loyalty my unadorned face.
But why do tears stream down my cheeks,
flowing real and chaotic?
Like an empty house in the wind,
a house adrift on ocean currents
a petal breathes in its shadow,
a frail branch drags light as it moves,
flicking rainwater onto your face.
If I could, my love,
please lift your pensive face
so illusory, so distant
even on that first night
when we collided abruptly,
splashing together in the water.
Intimate whispers made my brain ache.
I traced animal tracks in the sand,
relics from childhood, bearing all my inner beauty
(now the beach will be desolate as a blank sheet!).
I race along the wind’s crooked path
or drift slowly back to night,
carrying the most splendid garden in the world.
If I could, I would cease to remember
let shadows drift like trees in clouds, fading far away.
Beidaihe, 1989
Steering Clear of That Summer’s Noon
That summer was truly beautiful—a song once sung,
its voice faded, yet trembling still at the heart’s edge.
I wander now outside that summer,
passing through rows of rising and falling black-and-white corridors.
I am mature enough to face winds from every direction.
Steering clear of that summer, this noon,
I guard alone a small window steeped in philosophy,
dust still quivers among the broom flowers,
panels of light lie collapsed on the ground,
butterflies cling to pollen’s bright lexicon, flying through shadows.
I adorn the window lattice with branches purified by white foam,
fold a 1919 newspaper into a pale stallion,
let it be encircled by wary, scattered seeds.
Let geckos ignite golden lanterns; the clam king, post-climax,
clenches the spider plant’s slender fingers.
I am arranging a simple rite, a nostalgic atmosphere,
hand beneath the pillow, caressing the roar of waves.
I remember us walking hand in hand through white seaside alleys,
the profound dreams we shared and deepened,
shadows panting over blossoms,
the dense illusions and voices around us.
I remember that summer, a many-eared stalk of wheat falling into water,
the secret pricked by your finger, the bathtub’s hue,
the color of your eyes when you loved me,
how you always closed my eyes with a hint of worry.
That summer when everything slipped away
I kept hearing water’s escape:
from our hands, our eyes,
between junipers and cattails,
from my big black comb and noon’s thirsty slumber.
That summer left us behind, our love
like two white stones risen from water, radiant, pure.
Still, it is the same tranquil noon, you lie awake in dreams,
a leaf adrift on time’s waves.
I tiptoe through extinguished constellations; a small window
unfolds like a butterfly’s blood-filled wings.
In your distance, I become your beautiful and solitary bride,
poised in May’s silent candlelit stillness, waiting for you to wake.
1989
