lamps and lanterns

Hi there, my name is Rob Voigt, and this will be a blog containing primarily my translations of contemporary Chinese-language poetry, and generally with a bit of background on the poets in question and links to their work. It'll also include some other random ponderings on Chinese literature, professional translations that I like, and so on. There won't be a ton of critical analysis, hopefully things will mostly speak for themselves. I'll be aiming for one post a week.

To start things off, however, we'll have some translations that are not mine - poems from the ubiquitous and super-cool Bei Dao, literally "Northern Island," real name Zhao Zhenkai. Known as one of the "Misty Poets" for his dense, imagistic style, Bei Dao was one of the founders of "Jintian" (Today), an important poetry magazine that ran from 1978 until it was banned in 1980 (though it is currently back in action). He is one of the best-known contemporary Chinese poets in the West, in particular for his poem "The Answer," which was written during the 1976 Tian'anmen square protests and taken up as something of an anthem during the more infamous 1989 protests. At the time he was in Germany, and was thereafter banned from returning to China.

Today's two poems are "We" and an untitled poem, both found in Bei Dao's collection "Landscape over Zero" (零度之下的风景), as translated by David Hinton and Yanbing Chen. They are the poems from which this blog draws its name, "lamps and lanterns." In "We," Hinton and Chen translate "灯笼" as "lanterns," and in the untitled poem, the first character of that word, "灯," is translated as "lamp."

Lamps, lanterns, light, they're common images and sometimes powerful ones, but as a choice for the blog title I'm hoping to highlight the strange and sometimes non-rational decision-making inherent in the translation of poetry. What is it about those two images that caused Hinton and Chen to use lamp here and lantern there? Is it the connotations in the target language? A more accurate portrayal of the source text? For the map/lamp rhyme? Maybe it's a simple way of making the simple distinction between the two similar but non-identical words in Chinese? Or maybe it was just a feeling.

我们 失魂落魄 提着灯笼追赶春天 伤疤发亮，杯子转动 光线被创造 看那迷人的时刻： 盗贼潜入邮局 信发出叫喊 钉子啊钉子 这歌词不可更改 木柴紧紧搂在一起 寻找听众 寻找冬天的心 河流尽头 船夫等待着茫茫暮色 必有人重写爱 无题 人们赶路，到达 转世，隐入鸟之梦 太阳从麦田逃走 又随乞丐返回  谁与天比高 那早夭的歌手 在气象图里飞翔 掌灯冲进风雪 　 　 我买了份报 纸 从日子找回零钱 在夜的入口处 摇身一变 　 　 被颂扬之鱼 穿过众人的泪水 喂，上游的健康人 到明天有多远      -北岛

We lost souls and scattered spirits holdings lanterns chase spring scars shimmer, cups revolve light's being created look at that enchanting moment a thief steals into a post office letters cry out nails o nails the lyrics never change firewood huddles together searching for an audience to listen searching for the heart of winter river's end a boatman awaiting boundless twilight there must be some one to rewrite love Untitled people hurry on, arrive return in another life, fade into bird dreams the sun flees wheat fields then comes back trailing after beggars who's rivaled sky for height that singer who died young soars in the weather map flies into snowstorms holding a lamp I bought a newspaper got change back from the day and at the entrance to night eased into a new identity celebrated fish move through everyone's tears hey, you folks upstream achievers so hale and hearty how far is it to tomorrow      -Bei Dao, t. David Hinton and Yanbing Chen