Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Eternal Day by Ma Yongbo
Life is the part we haven’t lived yet,
we are just the part we have left.
I have to write something
to make certain this day
is different from yesterday;
many times I write the same words.
Night falls so quickly;
it’s surprising
like a net approaching trembling water.
2018.12.30
English translation by Helen Pletts 2024
Frost on the Window
It is spring now and the frost on the window is gradually thinning,
once it drew distant mountains and tangled trees on the glass,
once it led a young man on to an uninhabited path
and trapped the only shining light in a sinking net.
Of course, these are all just memories;
it cannot hold on to everything that is disappearing
letting the boy walk further on the window,
until today—a white trap.
Undoubtedly, frost is a product of the battle between coldness and warmth,
at night, it’s like a group of children peering through the window
longing for our warm lives,
with wide, crystalline eyes. The first glimmer of the sun
starts in the frost on the window,
becoming louder and louder like a burst of praise
I lean on the windowsill, watching the patterns on the glass
gradually turning into water vapour with my breath,
transforming the window into a misty mirror.
We observe things through this blurred mirror,
touching the damp coldness between language and reality.
2001.3.11
English Translation by Ma Yongbo and Helen Pletts 2024
Deep Autumn by Ma Yongbo
I leave behind me the last woman.
There’s no one left in the city
who knows me.
Autumn leaves fall around my silhouette,
sink into puddles,
my boots echoing,
water flowing beneath the fallen leaves.
Trees on the muddy ground are too upset to speak,
forgetting that seasons will also change.
My feet are wet with glistening water,
the wind occasionally brings news from beyond the woods.
Only the reins remain on the overturned cart,
a red horse flickers at the forest edge.
How I wish for a narrow alley,
where one morning, that horse would quietly pass by.
There’s no sound left in the city,
the small bottles on the balcony still shimmer,
the handle of the glass door turns gently.
At the same moment, I’ll wake up there,
leaving the door open.
I run my hand through my hair,
deep autumn has arrived.
The wind-cheater replaces blessings, fluttering behind me.
The real woman won’t be seen on the road anymore,
I’ll walk among the fallen leaves,
find another path,
let my silhouette appear
on the open land.
1986.8.11
English Translation by Ma Yongbo and Helen Pletts 2024
what the bees know by Helen Pletts
For the honey months
they hang together, best
in their heart of fur.
Come winter, and
the heart becomes
a golden sepulchre;
empties the drones,
scattering their curves
to the frosty floor.
31.08.2024
this is the violet hour by Helen Pletts
the night-ribbon unravelling, stars spilling
everywhere, shoulders closer than ever.
Roses unfurl in the night air, moths dress
their petals with softness and body fur.
We are quiet signals tonight, only nature
speaks for us, in a voice of wonder. We sleep
and the darkness governs us. The moths are
happiest, when they are speaking to the roses
08.09.2024
the seeds of ash become him by Helen Pletts
white stars wander in his hair, whispering in his ear
songs to raise the horse with a green spur, we
watch it galloping in snow hooves. The edge of the turf
wavy like the snow fringe of the white waves,
if we are in water, there is no breeze, only the refracted
light inside the pink curve of a shell, found beneath
the fathoms; we reach down and cradle it in our arms
07.07.24
Ma Yongbo is a Chinese scholar 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. “ His poems are solemn and generous, with a solid spiritual subject and a broad magnetic field, full of the refreshing breath of the northern cold land (Harbin), opening up a vast and immeasurable mysterious poetic realm for Chinese poetry.” Taiwan Huang Liang, poet, critic.
Helen Pletts: (www.helenpletts.com) Currently lives in UK. Shortlisted for Bridport Poetry Prize 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024, twice longlisted for The Rialto Nature & Place 2018 and 2022, longlisted for the Ginkgo Prize 2019, longlisted for The National Poetry Competition 2022. 2nd prize Plaza Prose Poetry 2022-23. Shortlisted Plaza Prose Poetry 23-24. Working closely with Ma Yongbo since Feb 2024. “Helen’s very personal poetry reveals her strong connection to the natural world while also laying herself open emotionally. She writes with a thoughtful, mesmerising delicacy on love and death, on joy and need, illness and exhaustion”. Kate Birch, Publisher, Ink Sweat and Tears
