1. got 13 acceptances in october, and 8 in november, about half a dozen from the outlets where my work has previously appeared, as i often submit poetry to an 'old' acquaintance without knowing it - as of today, my publication credits has reached 1,496 literary outlets across 42 countries;
2. for the first time, my poetry appeared in a taiwan-based print magazine called the Epoch Poetry Quarterly(《创世纪》 ), actually the most influential or the leading chinese poetry magazine in the island; this has been quite a relief because i used to believe that no taiwanese is interested in publishing my (chinese) poetry;
3. more comforting and encouraging is the fact that introduced by friendly dr Zhuo Tongnian (卓同年), an internationally renowned traditional chinese medical doctor often referred to as 'the Missionary of the Traditional Chinese Medicine' (中医传教士‘), i met prof. Liu Weijian (刘伟见) in dr Zhuo's 'Life Nurturing Club' on the eve of 12 november.
Though in the English-speaking world I may prove to be the most widely published contemporary poetry author from China thus far, almost no editor in my country of origin has showed any interest in my poems either written in, or self-translated into, Chinese since my teenage years. However, Dr Liu Weijian, a nationally leading scholar (of Chinese classics) and highly renowned poet and novelist from Beijing University found my poetry (in Chinese) 'deep, outstanding, brief and serene'. From his comments, I discovered, much to my comfort, that my poetry is 'acceptable' to an experienced mainland Chinese reader after all.
the above paragraph was my response to a question raised recently by Vallum, which is: What was your best poetry discovery this year? indeed, ever since i began to feel interested in poetry at age 14, my literary experience has made me keenly aware that my poetry, whether written in chinese while i was in my teenage years, or self-translated from my published poetry composed originally in english, no reader among my fellow chinese likes my work.
interestingly, here is my 'literary karma' with my own people: my chinese poetry (self-translated from english into chinese) was first published by north america-based online magazines (in 2013), then in a print journal based in singapore, later in those based in hongkong, macao, and shenzhen, until this year in taiwan. so far, i have exchanged a few he poems (和诗） with dr Liu. in fact, yesterday, he sent me a first rate poem titled 'Missing my friend Changming at midnight' (夜怀昌明兄），and i sent a chinese poem back to him in response, which is also quite satisfactory to me. we both know that by so doing, we are following an ancient chinese literary tradition promoted by Li Bai and Du Fu during the Tang (Poetry) Dynasty.
my literary karma in and with chinese seems to show that my poetry is least 'acceptable' to my own people in my own country. this is no surprising: anyway, since a child, i have grown up and been living all the time against insults, injuries, discouragements and adversities.
i know there is still a long way to go before i sleep, or before my chinese poetry is accepted by more chinese readers. i hope to live long enough to 'conquer' a few mainland chinese literary magazines.
4. i have been thinking about writing a couple of truly 'worthy' (prose) poems, of course in english...
