MCLC: Xing Mie poem

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Martin Winter <dujuan99 at gmail.com>
Subject: Xing Mie poem
**********************************************************

Source: Martin Winter's blog (3/21/13):
http://erguotou.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/three-pictures-one-chinese-dream/

 http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_68d111990101gxbf.html
 

Yi Sha has introduced many young poets on Weibo in the past two years. One
of them is Xing Mie 星灭 (born in 1975). In the last few days, Yi Sha showed
him around on Weibo again, with this poem:
 

Xing Mie

father likes to take a nap
father was born in 1949.
he always liked to fall asleep.
especially now
he dozes off all the time.
it's like he never wakes up.
actually, mother says
when father was young,
he was very active at the unit.
went there early, came back late.
then, after 10 years of confusion
he never woke up again.
even when he sleeps
his eyes are half open.

2012-05-07

Tr. MW, March 2013
(Chinese original: links posted above)

When I first saw the poem, a speech featuring "Chinese Dream" was in the
news. And then came Anne Henochowicz's post "Life of Pig". And someone
posted a Hexie Farm cartoon on Google+. That's how the three came together.

10 years of confusion obviously refers to the CR. The Misty Poets'
generation was born around 1949. Did they have time to be very active in a
work unit before being sent to the countryside? It's a bit confusing, but
on the other hand this kind of sketchy talk about the recent past sounds
quite authentic.

Xing Mie's poems are mostly not about history. You can see a good recent
sample on his Sina Blog:

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_475bb53e0101a7up.html

Martin