Contributions from China

 

The Reed Field in the Winter

 

Finally, I can gaze into the distance

Finally, I can light a cigarette

 

The reeds that bow not to the wind are carried away cart by cart

They were taller than you by a head

 

Thus there emerge you

And the two ditches crisscrossed

 

Now, you can stride. You came in summer

But you did not live here

 

Now, the whole field of reeds belongs to you

Only you can set traps for the foxes

 

Why only one reed is left uncut while all the others are gone

Because it sprouts again from its root

 

Why does it look like a periscope

 

Why is a red thread tied to it

 

(from: All the Secrets Are in the Ditches)

 

 

Yang Jijun, Shandong 

                            (Translated by Shi Yonghao)

 

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Yang Jijun, an excellent contemporary Chinese poet, born in 1971 in Dongying City, Shandong Province. He is

a member of Chinese Poetry Society and Shandong Writers Association. He has published poems in “Poetry

Magazine”, “Yanhe River”, “Big River”, “Literature Monthly”, “Silver Poetry Magazine”, “Far Poetry” and so on.

He won the 9th Xu Zhimo Micro Poetry Prize and the Gold Medal in the International Poetry Competition of

World Poetry magazine. He published poetry collections such as “The First and the Point” and “The Man Who

Walked through the Reed Field”, “Blacksmith”, “Screwdriver”, “Bronze” (in Chinese-English), and “And the

World”(Swedish), etc.

 

Dream

If someone would ask me
What is the meaning of your life?
I would reply
That I met an angel.
Who enriched my life
Encounter with her, divine will
With her I feel like a flower who meets spring
Like an iceberg who meets a warm current
Her vivacity and smile encourage me
Give birth to my determination
With her I want to go all over the world
Wander into the abyss of words
Coexist with suffering
Dance with words
She is my other life.
I love her as light
When I'm in trouble
I think of her
Like the dark thinks of the light.

 Anna Keiko, Shanghai 

Translation Germain Droogenbroodt

 

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Anna Keiko (China) Poet, writer, once studied law at the School of Political Science and Law, Shanghai East China University, permanently living in Shanghai, China.    Founder and Chief Editor of ACC Shanghai Huifeng Literature Association and Chinese representative and director of the international cultural foundation ITHACA;    partner of Immagine & Poesia in Italy; international member of the Canadian-Cuban Literary Union; specially invited poet of the International Writers Magazine; member of the Board of Directors of the Young Writers Magazine.   Her poems have been rendered into more than 30 languages, and over 2,000 poems have been published in more than 500 poetry journals, magazines, newspapers and self-media in over 40 countries.    Anna Keiko has been invited to participate in dozens of international poetry festivals and poetry exchange conferences. Multi-awarded Poetess. Translated in many languages.

 

 

DREAM IN COLOR

Zhao Lihong

 

Dreamscapes dissipate

All that is remembered

are the vibrant specks, the shards

Sometimes my dreams are technicolored

more fresh and raw

than the real world

Other dreams are in black and white

as the dusty old films

a century ago

In the dreams of color

I float, I dance on air

Twilight and the budding clouds

accompany me as wings

a tornado of color

Music and fragrance

engulf me

like wine

From that misty outlook

The world has thousands of pustules

Each orifice

oozes blinding hues

…

In the dreams of black and white

I run, I struggle

Cliffs and deathly gorges

surround me

Along with harrowing torrents and undercurrents

and the dead who visit

who sit before me and do not speak

in the silence of the black and white

When I awake, I am exhausted

tears hang by the frame of my eyes

and all that I can touch

momentarily loses color too

…

But I would never know

where, in dream, the bliss and sorrows

well up from

 

Colored dreams and monochrome

sometimes go to war

hemming me in the middle

In that dreamscape

there is only a primeval grey

 

Zhao Lihong, Shanghai

 

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Zhao Lihong, born in Shanghai, China in 1952, is a poet, proser and chairman of

Shanghai International Poetry Festival. He won the Golden Key of Smederevo Prize

for poetry in 2013, and International Poetry Prize of Mihai Eminescu International

Academy in 2019.

 

I have a dream

 

I want to open a bookstore on an ancient street

The alley in front of the door, passing through the lively atmosphere of shops

Occasionally sit down in the store

Forget where time comes from and where it goes

 

A small river runs parallel to the alley

Watching the people washing on the stone steps reminds me of my hometown

Next to the stone steps, there is a small pier

The small wooden boat sets sail with the morning glow and returns full of sunset

 

When walking towards the bookstore, passing by a slate bridge

The length of the bridge

Makes people have no time to take a closer look at the speckled reflection of the white wall on the other side

 

In the evening, drums sounded from the ancient temple a few miles away

Attracting the birds in the forest to sing together, this sound comes from the silence of thousands of years

 

No matter how late it is, whether it's raining or snowing

The light is on all night in front of the door

There is a young man who often visits the bookstore

I talk to him like I'm talking to my old self

 

Yu Nong, Shanghai

 

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Yu Nong, born in 1966, currently lives in Shanghai. He is the president of “World Poetry” magazine and the vice chairman of Boao Poetry Festival Organizing Committee. He is the author of poetry collections “Time Doesn't Avoid Cold and Warm”, “The Best Encounter” and so on. He has won the award of Shanghai Citizen Poetry Festival, the “Poet of the Year” at the 4th Boao International Poetry Festival, and the 20th Lebanon Naji Naaman Literary Prize.

 

DREAM

I learn to take things slowly,
Like reading a book until my shoulders are covered in snowflakes until dawn -- 
As a fisherman whole night of solitary boating and fishing in the cold river.

Until the first light turns up,
Until a girl hops and skips towards me.
She brushes past me, gives me a smile.
Her face was full of innocence -- 
A familiar round one, rosy cheeks, short hair, bright eyes
-- I meet myself.

Oh, it turns out that time can bend, If we walk slowly enough,
So slow that time curves into a circle.

 

Christine Pei Ying Chen, New Zealand/China

 

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