yuanspoetry©: April 2015

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

yuan changming: new collection to appear

last saturday, on april 23, my seattle-based american poet friend Koon Woon, author of award-winning Chasing the Waters, kindly offered to publish a poetry collection for me with his Goldfish Press.

on april 24, i prepared some 60 poems titled Kinship: For Yuan Hongqi and Liu Yu, and sent it to him with the 'table' page, 'ack' page and 'about' page. every poem is written about, for or to one of my family members. while most of them are based on essentially true experiences, some are on imagined or dreamed experiences. some of those to, for or about my late father Yuan Hongqi and my mother Liu Yu are actually among the best-received pieces i have written. among the 60 some pieces, at least 50 have already been published individually online or in print.

yesterday, Koon told me that after ten days of waiting we will get the proof. hopefully it will come out sometime in may.

this will be my fifth collection. i never give a dame about how many copies can be sold -- i know few of the vast majorities of poetry collections by most poetry writers are actually sold or even read outside their core social circles, but i want to do something not only to show my gratitude to Koon for his kind invitation, but also to pay 'tributes' to my family members.

at 5:00 pm today, i am going to read three poems with my younger poet son Allen Qing Yuan as scheduled on DC Poetry Project: the Power of Poetics, a blogtalk show hosted by renowned dc-based american poet Michael Anthony Ingram.

i am quite nervous about the reading event. because of some bad experience with the telephone and my health condition (a red light or a telephone ring can make me jumpy or nervous), my listening comprehension becomes poorer the moment i pick up a phone to communicate in english...

yuan changming: village photos

archived below are the photos i took of the village, known as 'lianhuadang,' where i grew up, attending primary and junior high school, basically from 1963 to 1972 ...

the plant i mostly gathered for the pig my household tried to raise

the plant said to make a dick swollen, which all village boys avoided touching

yam leaves, delicious to pigs

rice fields, often filled with leeches, where i sometimes worked after school

hot cotton fields, where i was always slow in picking the flowers

moon above the country, now more in my memory than in the reality

i felt a sense of kinship with cotton fields when i returned in october 2014

my primary school, now torn down but still with a later-built brick fence
photo taken in 2007 with my poet younger son

the primary school i attended, with a later-built gate and fence
photo taken with my 12-year-old younger son in the summer of 2007

the chicken house we had in our house, the wall has been modernized

the broom used to clean the room's mudfloor...

the house i lived in while attending junior high school
which used to have a thatched roof and mud walls

my father's tomb in my uncle's vegetable garden, taken in october 2014

tomb-visiting: fire crackers burned in honor of my father
photo taken in october 2014

my father's tomb, photo taken in october 2014

Saturday, 18 April 2015

Changming to Appear in a Blog Show

forgot to mention last time::

on april 5, i received a kind invitation from well-known american poet Catfish McDaris to participate in a blog show guest-hosted by him at 8:00 pm eastern time on 29 april. the dc-based blog talk radio is hosted by poet professor Michael Anthony Ingram, while the program is called the dc poetry project. i will read three poems (as pasted below) first in chinese and then in english. initially i was very hesitant, for i am always more nervous over the phone than on site - in particular, i am so nervous when communicating in english on the phone that my listening comprehension becomes too poor to understand what people are saying. however, with the mother's day approaching, i want to pay tribute to my mom.

program: the power of poetics
time: 8:00 pm eastern time, 29 april 2015
links:http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dc-poetry-project-

yesterday, Catfish kindly encouraged my younger son Allen to participate in the reading event as well. also, the friendly american poet has recommended us father-son comraderie to co-guest host the program. i am still hesitating about this, but for Allen's sake, we might take the challenge...
---------------------------------

移民

为从你母语的豪强逻辑

逃出生天

你徘徊，再徘徊

穿越地球的长度和宽度

将你的旧我，交付于另一种语法

另一整套对你的嘴唇和笔尖

都很陌生的语法规则

从而扩展你心灵的地图

远远超出家庭和避风港

然而，在此期间，它却成为

这个所选语言一切令人费解之

悖论的殖民地，例如：

快沙流可能会很慢

拳击圈实是方形

而几内亚豚既不是猪

也不是来自几内亚

一如你和我

Immigration

To escape from the tyrannical logic
Of your mother tongue
You wandered, wandering
Through earth’s length and breadth
Subjecting your old self to another syntax
A whole set of grammatical rules
Strangely new to your lips and tips
To expand the map of your mind
Far beyond your home and haven
Yet in the meantime it becomes colonized
By all the puzzling paradoxes
Of this chosen language, for example:
Quicksand can be very slow
Boxing rings are in fact square
And a guinea pig is neither a pig
Nor is it from Guinea
Like you or me

--------------------------------

写于母亲节：献给刘瑜

不是等您走了之后
再为了纪念您而写诗
我现在所写的，亲爱的妈妈
是我对您，地球上生命力
最强者之一的崇高敬意

是的，在您许许多多的的死亡经历中
对我个人（和我的儿子们）最最重要的
莫过于您两岁时的病痛，如此严重
以致您贫穷而无知的养母
只好无奈地把您摊放在一个簸箕里
把您活生生的尸体送回给您的生母

要不是您的继父，用他那萨满技能
遏制住邪恶的精神，并把它逼到一个未知
角落里，你会像一棵树苗注定凋落
（这就是为什么您的乳名改为“捡儿”）

因此，好好的，妈妈，请为我们保持顽强的生命！

On Mother’s Day: for Liu Yu

Rather than composing poetry
To commemorate you after you are gone
I am now writing, dear Mom
To pay my highest tribute to you
As one of the hardest-fated on earth

Yes, among the many death experiences you’ve had

The most significant one for me (and my sons)
Was your sickness you suffered at two, which was so
Severe that your poor and ignorant foster mother
Could do nothing but put you on a flat basket
And return your living corpse to your bio-creator

But for your step father, who used his shamanic skills

To contain the evil spirit and drive it to an unknown
Corner, you would have died like a doomed sapling
(That’s why your name is changed to ‘Refound’)

So, stay well, Mom, and remain hardy for us!

-------------------------------

最后一卖

你早已卖光

所有的汗珠和血浆

现在，尽管无人问津

你也要卖掉自己的心脏

有的人嫌你的血不够红

有的不满意你偏窄的心房

还有的认为你的冠状脈

沾满过多的情伤

你沿街叫卖，四处流浪

一颗心还是那么鲜活

在手中不停跳动

就像青蛙一样

你渴望能换来一杯清水

润润你冒烟的嗓音

这样，你便不必出卖你的灵魂

就像市场上其他小贩那样

贪得无厌，又铁石心肠

Single Last Sale

You’ve long since sold out

Both your sweat and blood

Now you try to sell your heart

Though nobody wants it

Some say the blood is not red enough

Others find the chambers too narrow

Still others think the coronary arteries

Stained with too many feelings

You peddle around, chanting aloud

From street to street

With your heart still fresh

Beating like a frog in your hands

You hope to sell it for a glass of water

Just to cool down your burning voice

So you do not have to sell your soul

Like all other hawkers in the market

Well satiated, but hardly heart-felt

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Wednesday, 8 April 2015

april updates: yuan's lit endeavors

1. finally, by the end of last month, i had had my poetry accepted by or published in more than 1,000 literary outlets across 32 countries - it was quite amazing to myself. when i tried to write english poetry in early august 2004, i had no idea that i could have gone so far, and i am still going, though through a limbo or dilemma period for the time being;

2. i am really tired of having to make poetry subs, but without taking this exhausting and boring step, i cannot hope to get my work out there to be read. indeed, i always enjoy the creating part of the job, but i hate the process of getting my work out of my little ivory tower. what's to be done next? just to continue writing, and let my work squat on the corner of my file box?

3. maybe i should try to write prose work now. i have always wanted to write a novel, or some short stories, but prose writing entails more attention and especially more time with the computer. this has been making me hesitate for long enough: my attention span is short; my eye condition forces me to minimize my computer time; and it will take more time, effort and patience to get any prosework published...

4. this morning when i opened my linkedin account, i received an invitation by Frank Joussen, a german author/editor, to send some family-themed prosework to his Anthology to be released in december. excited, i sent along my first and only short story 'ancestor worshipping,' which i wrote from my poet teenage son's perspective in 2008, one year after we had our joint china trip to our ancestor's home in shisan village, hanyang county. interestingly, Frank accepted the piece right away and gave me particularly encouraging comments, which end: 'I was only disappointed when I´d reached the end, I would have loved to go on reading - so maybe you´ll write a sequel one day? You or your son may submit again if you wish; I´d be delighted.' - isn't this an encouraging moment to begin to write more prosework?

5. these are all the prose works i have thus far written in english:
- 1 short story 'ancestor worshipping' (i published a poem with the same title, and roughly same content in the canadian magazine grain);
- 1 what chinese poets usually refer to as 'poetry talk,' titled 'die in poetry, or live forever,' published in the volta (http://www.thevolta.org/ewc48-cyuan-p1.html) and to be included in progressive poetics; (i also published a poem with a similar title 'die there, or live forever' in teh sangam magazine (http://poetry.sangamhouse.org/2013/08/die-there-or-liver-forever-by-changming-yuan/);
- 1 travelogue with the title of 'china revisited' which was published in us-china review in 2013 (http://www.uscpfa.org/USCR/USCR-S3.htmlYuan Changming, “China Revisited,” XXXIV, 3, 17-18);

6. the 400-page hardcover book create abundance is well on the way; as its translator and publisher, i have been undergoing more trouble or frustration than i am ever prepared for: the author/her representative is sometimes as unreasonably demanding, willful and irrespectful as those infamous chinese upstarters, the printer's formatter and editor in charge of layouts are careless, unprofessional and inefficient, while the import procedure involves much more business work than i ever want to expose myself to - one word, i have bitten more than i can chew this time; hopefully the e.galley is completed tonight and will go onto the machine in a couple of days; hopefully 30,000 copies will arrive in mid-may from shenzhen without creating more problems...

7. i have written about 130 mini blog essays in chinese. i post one each monday, and have created a quite loyal readership of around 300 - but for the hoster/editor's censorship, i would have had a much larger readership ( i have observed that if my mini-essays were not 'censored' or intentionally 'kept down,' there should be at least 1,000 hits for each single posting). most commentators are as impolite as they have poor thinking and writing skills, but i do not care. all i want to do is just to put into chinese characters everything i have observed and thought about chinese culture, chinese personality or chinese tradition, especially about the weakness or ugliness of the chinese as a modern nation
(at http://blog.creaders.net/changmingyuan/).

8. should i begin to write prose in english?

Sunday, 5 April 2015

[archived]: Alphabetic Poems by Yuan Changming ©

The Origin of Letters

By Yuan Changming

As the first born to the Semitic family

A was originally a picture of an alef or ox, the

Agricultural energy that was rotated twice until

Alpha loomed up in the Greek psychoscape even before

Adam became the chosen father of all Europeans close to

Athens, where Apollo had acupunctured wisdom and knowledge into

Aristotle, the intellectual ancestor of modern man, who inspired

Alexander to make the first effort of globalization, which did not reach East

Asia, the land of Ah Q’s, the largest hotel for

All travelers until centuries later, but it is

Atomic bombs that will blow up all our pasts and send us through

America to a higher civilization, where the drop of an

Apple is to enable us to fly to the other side of the universe

Along the cosmic string as

Africa, the heart of human darkness

Awaits for Buddha, Jesus, Allah or

An other unknown author to come and rotate for the third time

A scarlet letter of

boy, boy! britain begins beating brazil badly behind belrus' back, because bipedal britons believe brazilians behave better before boys become barbaric; beyond blue borders, bill's big bully boss blatantly breaks bounds by betraying blood-bound brotherhood, but bill's best biographer belies books braving bellicose breeds between balanced buoyancies.

beach birds besides boulders beget babies below beautiful bushes...

a Phoenician throw-stick

held high in his right hand

the Egyptian basket

lying far beyond his reach

what was, what is

the Chinese peasant

trying to do

in his story?

it is

neither a door

nor a delta

it is nothing, anything

but a hand

trying desperately

to open the door to the delta

when every reed bows down deeply

born to be a double reed

that can be bent

into a long vowel

the most frequently used letter

in english, echoing endlessly

in silences

if pulled down, it offers two doors

one leading to Soul via will, the other

to Him via wisdom; if turned up right

it forms a mountain with three peaks

like three holy swords, pointing high

one against the sun

one against the moon

one against the sky

Facing always towards the east, it embraces

existence, equality, eternity, emancipation...

as in fragrant flowers

that keep flirting with sunlight

on a French afternoon

forwarded to the future

will be a foiled fairytale

about France, as it tries to

catch a deformed viper

with an ancient hook

Gives us all the glories of

God, Godot, the gorilla

Amidst the gamers, constantly

Reminding us of George

Germany, the G-spot,

GPA, or GDP

inspired by a fence in hell

you were invented long ago

to connect every human

for a tall ladder of hope

that we can stand high

against the blue horizon

like the Babel Tower growing to reach Him

where I can find a home in the fame hall

where I can settle my soul in heaven

To begin with

The hieroglyphical origin of

My identity was simply no body

But a common reed

Bowing its head to the rising sun

On the barren bank of the Nile

Slim, tall, hollow-hearted

Standing against tropical heat

Until one day 'I' was used

As a human symbol, an open vowel

Referring to the speaker

And since then I have become

One of the most frequently spelt letters

In the linguistic order of the day

Always capitalized

To embody my dignity

Though I am nothing

But a common reed

That could have been made into a flute

a small cobra coiled

in a big pyramid's shape

always read to bite

just like Japan

just like Justice

an other basket

you hold anything having a shape

but sand or water

* *

for all your knighthood

you keep quiet before knowledge

but never the king

with an open angle

you embraces all legends

about light and lions

despite your body

as imposing as a massive mountain

you have a mindset

hidden deeply

in the wisdom of a little owl

in the plasticities of a drop of water

No, nobody knows this

But you are really no more

Or no less than the old

Egyptian metonymy of

A stream, river, lake, sea or

Even an entire ocean, where

There is always water , where

There are always fish

Rather than a synecdochic Z

Pushed straight upright

On the bank of the Euphrates

a rope loop propped up with hope

to lasso words running amuck

a mouth reshaped, repositioned

to pronounce the roundest vowel

not really a stoop

but a flag fluttering there

followed by pi rates

a chord, made of sunlight

instead of grass

will lead each climber to the peak

though few can find it

on the hillside

beside the question

residing near their summer resort

through her entire year

after their marriage, (for better or for worse)

russian author catherine tries narrating

her bearish story from their wintery perspective

where her major concerns are perhaps

wrapping gershwin's rhapsody

around hieroglyphic spring sprouts

with a double hook

the sexist, the most charming shape

looking more like a naked woman

in postmodern art

than folded cloth used to cover her body

in an Egyptian tale

always ready to

seduce

the Egyptian loaf

far off the Phoenician mark

is still edible now

u is surely a part of you, while

you sound no more than a single letter

u, which is nothing but a copy of a chick

you used to be on the bank of the Nile, where

u can be changed into

v within an european word as in yvan; it's said

you have the makings of a

victor, a us or un representative who begins the

uniform, university, universe.

with the shape of victory

you are a viper in essence:

each victory is a poisonous snake

pecking around a lion

only the little chick

knows the word's worth

as it writes the worlds' story

with its feet printed on the ground

rather than on a papyrus

only when two straight roads meet

at an intersection, or

only when you cross the road

crossing the border can you

understand why Christ's body is

nailed on the cross, but his soul

rises high above the land

You are haunted by ‘Y’, not because it’s the

First letter in your family name, but because

It’s like a horn, which the water buffalo in your

Native village uses to fight against injustice

Or, because it’s like a twig, where a crow

Can come down to perch, a cicada can sing

Towards the setting sun as loud as it wants to

More important, in Egyptian hieroglyphics

It stands for a real reed, something you can

Bend into a whistle or flute; in pronouncing it

You can get all the answers you need, besides

You can make it into a heart-felt catapult

And shoot at a snakehead or sparrow, as long

As it is within the range of your boyhood

sharp-angled

in opposite directions:

you are not so much like

a weird weapon, a manacle, or

a bolt for fastening the flood

of the Nile in ancient logography

as like a postmodern zebra

zigzagging with zeal

like a zealot trying to pass

through an inflated zero

Wednesday, 1 April 2015

Gifts from Angelee Deodhar

this morning, i had a happy surprise as i received the following gifts from Angelee Deodhar, an eye doctor and haiku enthusiast from India - thank you for these wonderfully poetic gifts, Angelee, and happy fool's day!