Yang Lian has been chosen to represent China at Poetry Parnassus as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. He is one of eight Asia Literary Review poets among the 205 who will perform at the South Bank Centre in the last week of June 2012. Click here for links to all the poets and their poems.
Modern Chinese Poetry - Insistent Voices
The snowfield, covered with the blind. They couldn’t see
the poem that died in the hotel
and the valley breeding terrible sunlight.
They
lost their shadows under the same precipice
becoming thin black needles on the
sundial in the garden
washing their feet with laughter.
Flowers
meticulously etched on a bowl by a dead bird –
drinking from the bright red
stream at the picnic.
Noon – the stream secreted by the blind.
They couldn’t see the
travellers in the poem lying naked in their hotel beds.
Without having to fall,
they were swallowed by the avalanche.
translated by Zheng Danyi, Shirley Lee and Martin Alexander
More poems from Modern Chinese Poetry - Insistent Voices:
Misty Poets
北島（1949 - ）Bei Dao - Landscape Above Zero
多多（1951 - ）Duo Duo - Tonight We Sow
舒婷（1952 - ）Shu Ting - A Few Memories
楊煉（1955 - ） Yang Lian - Snow Without Subject (2)
顧城（1956 - 1993）Gu Cheng - One Generation
Transition
翟永明 (1955 - ) Zhai Yongming Mother
柏樺（1956 - ）Bai Hua - The Future
New Generation
張棗（1962 - 2010）Zhang Zhao - In the Mirror
陳東東 (1962 - ) Chen Dongdong - Wild Temple
鄭單衣 (1963 - ) Zheng Danyi - Phoenix
