100subtexts literary magazine 18 Liu Hua's Ink Poetry Selection"Forest of Dreams"English Recitation Video Version
A lion carries a rabbit on its back, while the Monkey King leads a duck. A stream flows with honey, trees laden with fruit.Morning light bathes the flowers, a clear spring reflects lovers. A young girl dances gracefully, accompanied by a boy playing the flute.Van Gogh happily drinking wine, while Bada Shanren artfully tasting tea. Silver haired Confucius playing the guqin, while Socrates chanting poetry. That is my forest,The forest of my dreams.
English Recitation: Diana Pan Rong
I posted my abstract ink and wash on WeChat, and a friend forwarded it to me and wrote a poem about it in English. This triggered me to write poems to self-interpret my ink and wash, and I didn't realize that I had written eighty of them over six months.
I was amazed at the different ink works I had written and the thoughts that unfolded in my mind. They seemed familiar, yet strange, like my nightly sleep, the ink and brush strokes introduced me to the abyss of consciousness, and set off the turbulent waves in my heart. I transformed them into the words of a poem, and reading the words of a poem was like watching my own ink.
I am fortunate to have been able to record the reality of my life in a portfolio.
I am lucky that without ink and poetry, the light of my life would have turned into smoke and drifted away without a trace.
I am lucky that without the internet, my ink and verses would just be silent self-talk.
After the publication of Ink and Poetry at 100subtexts literary magazine, I received a letter from the editor, Mr. John Hopper, which touched me a lot with one sentence: "Thanks so much for being part of the magazine and this brand new issue, your contribution made all the difference. "And Thanks to Prof Liang Wenchiang, Seattle, USA, and Samuel Penn, the editor of Architecture Magazine, UK for their translation support.
Mr. John Hopper, who has a unique and sensitive eye for art, appreciated my ink poems very much when he saw them on the internet and wanted to publish them in the monthly issue of the European literary magazine "100subtexts", which he edited. Naturally, I was eager to do so and chose two of my poems, the dreamy and lyrical ones, and got translation support from Professor Liang Wenchiang, from Seattle, USA, and Mr Samuel Penn, the editor of Architecture Magazine in the UK, who is now a special foreign professor of the Department of Architecture at Xiamen University.
After the publication of the ink poems, I received a letter from the editor, Mr. John Hopper, which touched me to the core with the words, "Thanks so much for being part of the magazine and this brand new issue, your contribution made all the difference." And I wrote back, "Hello! I am very happy to have received the e-file of the magazine in the mail, and this is certainly one of my happiest moments, thanks to you and your colleagues for your hard work on this. I think both authors and readers will be grateful for your meaningful work, and I am deeply honored that my poems and paintings can be published in your magazine. Art makes the world a beautiful place, allows us to get to know each other across the ocean, and brings new information about art to those who care about and love it!
"100subtexts is an eclectic and vibrant international literary magazine. Subtexts translate to subtexts or extra texts, and I think it is more accurate to translate the magazine's name as "A Thousand Extratexts". I think it is more accurate to translate the name of the magazine as "Ten Thousand Words Beyond Words" because the words of the poems are metaphors, and a thousand people will read them with a thousand feelings. My interpretation of the poems I wrote with my ink and wash may be the same in one way and another.
Last but not least, we would like to express our special thanks to Ms Diana Pan Rong, a recitation artist, for her voice-over reading of the ink poem. Her beautiful voice and excellent recitation skills make the poem's words and phrases resonate with an infinite number of meanings.
Liu Hua, graduated from the Department of Chinese Painting of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1982, used to teach in the Department of Fine Arts of Hengyang Normal College, and has been living in Suzhou since 2001 as a freelance artist, engaged in painting, sculpture, photography, artistic landscape design, graphic design, art theory research, and network writing.
In 2005, he wrote the book "Into the New Landscape", published by Guangdong Science and Technology Press.
2014 Ink works exhibited at the Singapore International Art Fair.
Founded the WeChat self-media Public Account "Ancient Garden Dream" 古园惊梦 in 2016.
2019-2020 Appointed as the author of the garden weekly of Suzhou Gusu Evening News.
2023 Abstract ink works and interviews published in Inspirational Arts magazine.
2024 Abstract ink works and modern poems published in Europe's 100subtexts literary magazine.