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2010年12月8日 星期三

The Impossible Xu Zhimo

Last night, I briefly glanced through some of the poems of Xu Zhimo forming the last part of last Saturday's acquisition. I wanted to kick myself. How could I have ignored this wonderful modern Chinese poet for such a long time! If I were a Frenchman, I would have thrown up both my hands, shake my head, lift my face towards the ceiling and say "Impossible!" If I were a Spaniard, I would have looked at myself in the mirror, point my index finger to the face in that mirror and sway it from side to side and shaking my head at the same time and say, "Increible!"


Looking at poem after poem quickly, one thing struck me with almost the force of a sledge hammer, Xu is such a spontaneously sensuous poet! I have seldom seen any other poet writing like him. Perhaps they were constrained by considerations of decorum and good form. But certainly not him. All he sees are images, images, images and dialogues or monologues which would gush out one after another from that fountain of inspiration which is his head, at an incredible speed and all he would do is simply to write them down as and when they come, as if they were writing themselves! I do not know if it actually happened like that. But that is my impression as my eyes roamed over those rows and rows of print in longer or shorter lines on those pages which I turned.  I'm so happy I found him. My heart is throbbing with the excitement of anticipation at the prospect of being able to read him at a more civilized speed and to savour the beauty of his words and putting myself imaginatively into his position as he wrote them, with a good cup of freshly brewed coffee at my side.  What delight!


I shall choose at random the first short poem that I find to translate because of the constraint of time for my self-imposed target of a blog a day. I shall introduce his longer poems when I have more time over the weekend. So without further ado, here is the first one, chosen as I said, entirely randomly: the Coral


              珊湖                                                Coral


你再不用想我說活               You can't expect me to speak any more


  我的心早沈在海水底下; My heart has long sunk beneath the sea water ;             


你再不用向我叫喚:              You don't call out to me any more


   因為我-我再不能回答!        Because I--I can't reply!           


除非你-徐非你也來              Unless you--unless you come too


   這珊瑚骨環繞的又一世界; Into this other world surrounded by coral bones;  


等海風定時的一刻清靜,I'm waiting for the moment of that regular lull in the sea breeze


   你我來交互你我的幽歎。 to exchange with one another our tucked away sighs.


 


In this poem, Xu is apparently talking about his inability to speak to his lover during a visit to the tropical coral sea when he was engrossed in the beautiful undersea world of brightly colored and lively coral fishes weaving in and out of the corals and wafting sea weeds with the reflected light of the sun as a moving screen of light from the underside of the surface of the water above, during one of his skin diving trips. He imitates the way that he was speaking while he was just coming up for air by breaking up the rhythm of his speech by his inability to continue saying what he was about to say in one breath. Is that sigh a sigh to express his inability to instantly communicate with her?


3 則留言:

  1. Interesting setting! Presumably, his lover is 林徽音?
    [版主回覆12/08/2010 10:55:00]You may well be right. I don't know when this was written nor where but it must be somewhere tropical. Got to look for biographical help before I can tell.
    By the way, will you be going to Joe Hisaishi's concert tonight?

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  2. "Seaweed, moved by the wind, moving,    Moved by the wind, and yet they can't move away,     By the windy rain beating the weeds, they bend and they bow,      The humble seaweed and still tough ,        Wind sings its windy charms with no listeners but the weeds,         Moving the curly body weeds, but not moving away..."   Good evening, my dear old friend !  After you've read so much poems of the great poets, I'd love to see a poem of your own! 










    [版主回覆12/08/2010 19:25:00]Thank you for your always creative intervention.
    Seeing so many good poems from great poets can be a rather intimating experience. It may be that having seen the impossible beauty of other great poetry, one is condemned to a hundred years of silence! Compared to what the great poets have written, anything that comes from me can be nothing but trash. I have no intention of polluting others eyes with something fit for the dust bin posing as something better than it really is. I am less clever than the octopus and certainly less skilful. I may not be good, but I can at least be honest. I would like to think that I am a little less ignorant than others about what I can and what I cannot do. I am so sorry to disappoint you, much against my own will. Please accept my apologies.

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  3.  I'm BACK 你好嗎?
    [版主回覆12/08/2010 23:33:00]I'm fine. Thank you. And you? Was your trip a success?

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