May Huang - Final Portfolio Excerpts
Introduction (abridged)
The bolded poems are the ones I will discuss today.
The nine poems I chose to translate for this portfolio reflect the ways I have been introduced to poetry, as well as the kind of poems that speak to me as a writer who is interested in work that is inherently ‘bilingual,’ influenced by both English and Chinese language and culture. The portfolio begins with classical poems that I read as a child and concludes with contemporary poems that I will likely encounter most in the future as I engage with Hong Kong’s contemporary literary landscape. In between are works that reveal literary exchange and influence transpiring between Chinese and English poetic traditions. The range of poems posed formal and stylistic challenges that deepened my understanding of translation—in theory and in practice.
The portfolio is organized somewhat chronologically: it begins with two classical Chinese poems from the Song Dynasty, “Staying in the Bo Xian Temple on a Snowy Night” by Su Shi (the one after which I was named) and Partridge Sky by Li Qingzhao. It then segues into “Waiting for you, in the rain” by Yu Guangzhong, a Taiwanese poet who studied in the U.S. and incorporated elements of Western poetry into Chinese poems written with a classical undercurrent.
The three pieces that follow were written by authors who were significantly influenced by the work of Western poets; Zhai Yongming was heavily influenced by Sylvia Plath, Zang Di wrote “The Society of Digging into Fresh Soil” as an elegy to Seamus Heaney, and Ya Xian wrote “Chicago” based on Carl Sandburg’s poem of the same name.
The next two translations are of Chinese poems that were written in Western forms, an Italian sonnet by Feng Zhi and a sestina by contemporary Hong Kong poet Zhong Guoqiang. I finally conclude the portfolio with “Mosquitoes,” another work by Zhong Guoqiang, ending on a note close to home.
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1) 雪夜獨宿柏仙庵
蘇軾 晚雨纖纖變玉霙，小庵高臥有余清。 夢驚忽有穿窗片，夜靜惟聞瀉竹聲。 稍壓冬溫聊得健，未濡秋旱若為耕。 天公用意真難會，又作春風爛漫晴。
Staying in the Bo Xian Temple on a Snowy Night
Su Shi
Night rain turns into sleet, fine as jade while pure winds blow on temples aloft Suddenly, something pierces my window mid-dream, startling me awake Yet the only sound I hear in the quiet dark Is the bamboo leaves’ quick cascade Hardly past a winter cold myself, how will fields recover from the autumn draught? Heaven’s intents are hard to guess, For soon again the spring breeze will blow Color and brightness into our days.
2) The Society of Digging into Fresh Soil
Zang Di —In Memoriam Seamus Heaney, 1939 – 2013 The Ireland I love. Far enough But never foreign. Every time I dig up the orchids of Ireland, my spade sinks into fresh soil, finding beautiful strength in lonely words. Deep green tips of leaves can sway an attentive heart. How might the stamen, swaying in the wind of our words, already the prisoner of poetry, look upon human life? Only the sweat of our brows can fill the pit We dig into the ground. And in this age of hardship only such a pit can deepen the trust between us. So pick up the phone and ring up your reflections— They have persisted for far too long In the scenery of scenery. Love is ice. If you do not believe me, give it a try. The last day of August went by like an elephant. Don’t look at me like that. I am now a blind man. A bottom line like this needs a blind man like me. Delmore Schwartz, after whom Bellow modeled Humboldt in Humboldt’s Gift, once said, with much sorrow— “For like a gun is touch.” The situation is indeed grim but you, who persisted in opening the forge’s oily shop curtain, taught me to strike like the hammer, to trust every touch.
3) Sonnet 25
Example of 1st stanza: 案頭擺設著用具， 架上陳列著書籍， 終日在些靜物裡 我們不住地思慮；
Àn tóu bǎi shè zhe yòng jù, jià shàng chén liè zhe shū jí, zhōng rì zài xiē jìng wù li wǒ men bù zhù dì sī lǜ;
Tools placed on a table top, Rows of books arranged on shelves, Such still life around ourselves All day long lost in thought; Speaking voices do not sing , Routine motions do not flow; Blankly ask how birds should know To soar by flapping wings. Only in the still of night Will bodies breathe meter and rhyme, Feel the air at play inside, Salt water play with blood inside— And maybe hear, in a dream, The sky and sea calling out our names?
4) Mosquitoes I don’t know when we began eating at the nearby restaurant not wanting to trouble mother on New Year’s and other family gatherings until the time we spent in the old house grew shorter and the mosquitoes swarming in from all directions grew fiercer, forming a herd, ready to risk everything, so close I could see the space between their fuzzy antenna and empty stomachs I slap, slap the empty air without pause. Mother goes about her daily chores, utterly indifferent to the house full of mosquitoes About time to go, mother. Massaging her belly, she walks out and says no, face dimmed by lamplight, because of an upset stomach Perhaps because, seeing the white hair on her temples, she ate some of the vermicelli left out since breakfast this afternoon Why wasn’t it warm why didn’t we microwave it before she took a bite? Mother stayed home on the night of the winter solstice, refusing our company I saw a sky of mosquitoes slowly, slowly land on walls of the old house, the kitchen counter, the chairs, the desks, the cups, the bowls, the chopsticks… Time belongs to them, now. Over the phone, father says don’t worry, Mother is asleep, and my head starts to ache on the West Rail Line As if I were in the old house with mosquitos invading my skull over and over, thin wings quivering at high frequency, piercing through a pain I had forgotten
案頭擺設著用具，
架上陳列著書籍，
終日在些靜物裡
我們不住地思慮；