Translating Taiwanese poet Ling Yu

A Tree Planted in Summer, Ling Yu, Fiona Sze-Lorrain (trans) (Vif Éditions, 2015)

Reading and translating Taiwanese poet Ling Yu reminds me much of American writer, environmentalist, and activist Terry Tempest Williams’s wisdom: There is an art to writing, and it is not always disclosure. The act itself can be beautiful, revelatory, and private.

In my opinion, Ling Yu’s poetry contains the above qualities: perhaps aware of how several poets in her country and language are prone to cultivating celebrity fame and fan culture, or capitalizing on Facebook or Twitter to sustain their poetic careers and publicity, Ling Yu strives to create a Beckettian lyricism and silence—in life and her art. What results is a poetic voice that often does not need to be loud or echoey in order to assert its confidence, passion, and weight. On the contrary, it may be heard and felt through the imagery or ambiance it evokes, hence an overall Impressionist effect that comes across as distinctly moving yet oblique.

As translator, I have received feedback about the pristine sonic and textual qualities of Ling Yu’s language. My translations seek to create—and recreate—a music that responds to simplicity. This four-sectioned poem, also published in The Offending Adam, is excerpted from her debut bilingual collection, A Tree Planted in Summer (Vif Éditions, 2015), which was released in Taipei this past winter and distributed locally by Youhe Book and Black Eyes. The cover image of this collection is from The Memory of Trees • Tainan (2010), a painting by Taiwanese artist Tzu-Chi Yeh.

—Fiona Sze-Lorrain

* * *

說話人

1

我是說話人
我來自第一世紀
我要說
茶樹
在山坡上
發亮

2

我想到你們中間──
竹子
蕨類
香蕉林

深綠和淺綠
住在一起

我想到你們中間──
我也可以
綠得像
什麼

3

十萬張
萬萬張
億萬張
金面
菩薩
住在山中

太陽露臉了──
我也是金面

只因一時
經過了
那座山

4

告訴你
故鄉是黑色的

居民穴處
和禽獸同寢

世紀之前──
水白色
和綠色
輪值

那時魔鬼
也要出現

──只因我們
總不了解
宇宙

The One Who Speaks

1

I am the one who speaks
I hail from the first century
I want to say
tea trees
are glowing
on the hill

2

I want to be among you—
bamboos
ferns
banana forest

dark and light green
living together

I want to be among you—
I too can be
green like
anything

3

a hundred thousand
a hundred million
a billion
golden Bodhisattva
faces
live in the mountain

the sun shows up—
my face is golden too

only because I happen
to pass by
that mountain

4

let me tell you
hometown is black

residents sleep with beasts
in mountain caves

before Christ—
water rotated
in white
and green

devils too
appeared then

—just that we
have never understood
the cosmos


Fiona Sze-Lorrain is a French musician, poet, literary translator, and editor. Her most recent book is The Ruined Elegance: Poems.