MCLC: 9/11 texts (1,2)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Jeffrey Wasserstrom <jaseditor at journalofasianstudies.org>
Subject: 9/11 texts (1)
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Peter Hessler's "Straight to Video" piece in the New Yorker deals with

some Chinese responses to 9/11: here's the link to it:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/10/15/011015fa_fact_hessler

Jeff

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From: Martin Winter <dujuan99 at gmail.com>
Subject: 9/11 texts (2)

There was a strong echo, with deeply sympathetic reactions, considering
the recent conflict over the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in
1999. I think Huang Xiang wrote a poem, he has been living in exile in the
US since the 1990s. Poems and other reactions were shared on the MCLC list.

 
Yi Sha's famous 9/11 poem can be found in Vol 2 (2012) of Chinese
Literature Today, translated by Heather Inwood:

http://www.ou.edu/clt/02-02/poetry-yi-sha.html

There is another translation by Charles Kwong, in his paper Reflections on
a Century of Exploration: Whither Chinese Poetry?, to be found in Chapter
7 of the upcoming book Modernisation of Chinese Culture: Continuity and
Change, Cambridge 2013. Actually, Kwong has taken Inwood's translation and
changed some lines. In a few of these lines, Kwong's version is perhaps
more convincing. Kwong's paper is very much concerned with form. He is a
fan of traditional Chinese poetry. But his English version of Yi Sha's
9/11 poem doesn't have any rhythm, in comparison to the original, and also
to Inwood's translation. In the original, the first ten lines are of equal
length, that is they have the same number of syllables. These lines begin
with "First second", "Second second" and so on. The rest of each line in
this first section consists of only four syllables. Chengyus, or something
similar. Hardly possible to imitate in translation. At least Kwong does
talk about the form of the original, if not very much. He thinks the
enumeration of the first ten seconds is superfluous, "the tenth line would
have sufficed to suggest the turns of thought, second by second, in a more
subtle manner".  I don't think so. The dramatic quality of these first ten
lines would be hard to sustain in reciting or reading without these
initial anouncements. There is a palpable tension between the first ten
lines and the rest. But the whole poem is very terse and sparse.
Colloquial, but infused with language history. Very fitting.

 
The utter irreverence and the political concern from a very personal
perspective are characteristic for Yi Sha. "Niao chuang" (Wetting the
bed), ed. Huang Liang 黄梁, Taipei 2009, is a good sample. The best online
source in English and Chinese, besides Chinese Literature Today, is Poetry
International: 

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/976/Yi-Sha.

Shigeku.org has translations by Denis Mair:

http://www.shigeku.org/xlib/lingshidao/hanshi/yisha.htm

 <http://www.shigeku.org/xlib/lingshidao/hanshi/yisha.htm>Recently, Yi Sha
has written a poem on snow, Beijing Normal University and aircraft
Carriers:

http://erguotou.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/white-snow-black-crows/
 

Martin