Translations of poems by three contemporary Chinese poets

A Portion from 'My Tear — an Entrance into My Knee'

By Zang Di

…
the fallen leaves are collecting my body
Into a strange cover. If it is cold
Let me hear the sound of gripping
Or if what we hear is not confined to
Things around my body, then
The last chirping of insects is polishing urgently
The requiem for the earth
A golden memory is surging towards your sharp shadow
As if on the surface of the lake
There is a big ready-made scabbard waiting
In autumn wind, the stains of human nature have been edged
A bottomless pit is nothing to care about,
From the cry of the wild goose, I understand
That personal pain and sorrow cannot be measured
It does not yield to the logic of stories
It is not as shallow as any comparisons
If the other side of the matter is our destination
The earth and time also have limits.
You are being buried in the dark blue of purity
You got a new hypnosis from another flock of wild geese
Floating clouds are just like white washed cushions
That is being inserted to support your soft rib
Is the soft rib of time different?
Your farewell is so elastic
You have elevated the sorrow of a father
I then have to be a new and harder stair of the world
Kneel down, my tears are my knees
Kneel down, heartbeat is my knees
Kneel down, my breath is my knees.
If there is still miracle in this life and in this world
My sorrow is your path
…

(Zang Li, born in Beijing in 1964, graduated from Peking University with a PhD in literature in 1997. He was a visiting scholar to the Davis campus of the University of California from 1999-2000. He won the annual prize for poetry from the Writer Magazine in 2000. He is now a professor at the Chinese department of Peking University.)

Translator Wang Ronghua, who once served as China's ambassador to Iceland, is a distinguished professor at the School of Chinese Language and Literature of the University of International Business and Economics, and a guest professor at the University of Jinan.