(1899–1946)
Steeped in Chinese literary classics, Wen Yiduo was exposed to Western-style education early in life. He spent eight years at Tsinghua College (later Tsinghua University), which prepared him for study abroad. In 1922 he attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 1923 he published his first collection of poetry, The Red Candle. A formalist and experimenter, he focused attention on the visual and auditory, emphasizing what he called the “three beauties of poetry”: the beauties of music, painting, and architecture. In 1928 he published The Dead Water, in which he exposed grim and sordid Chinese reality with fresh images, evoking complex emotions. A diehard patriot and fiercely outspoken critic of the Nationalist government, he was assassinated after a rousing speech in Kunming, Yunnan in July, 1946.
This is a ditch of hopelessly dead water.
No clear breeze can raise half a ripple on it.
Why not throw in some rusty metal scraps,
Or even some of your leftover food and soup?
Perhaps the copper will turn its green patina into jade,
And on the tin can rust will bloom into peach blossoms;
Then let grease weave a layer of silk brocade,
And germs brew out colored clouds.
Let the dead water ferment into a ditch of green wine,
Filled with the floating pearllike white foam,
The laughter of small pearls turning into large pearls
Only to be pierced when gnats come to steal the wine.
Thus, a ditch of hopelessly dead water
May yet claim some small measure of splendor.
And if the frogs cannot bear the loneliness,
Let the dead water burst into song.
This is a ditch of hopelessly dead water,
A place where beauty can never live.
Might as well let vice cultivate it,
And see what kind of world it can create.
Perhaps you are indeed too wearied from too much weeping.
Perhaps, perhaps you wish to fall asleep now.
Then ask the night owl not to cough,
The frogs not to croak and bats not to fly.
Let no sunshine pierce your eyelids,
Let no clear winds touch your brows,
And whoever he may be, let him not startle you.
With an umbrella of pine I shall guard your sleep.
Perhaps you hear earthworms turning the soil,
The grass roots sucking water.
Perhaps the music you hear now
Is lovelier than men’s cursing voices.
Close tight your eyes then,
I shall let you sleep, let you sleep.
I’ll gently cover you with yellow earth
And ask the ashes of paper money to rise slowly.
I do not deceive you when I say I am no poet,
Even though I love the integrity of the white rocks,
The green pines and the vast sea, the sunset on the crow’s back,
The twilight woven with the wings of bats.
You know that I love heroes and tall mountains.
I love, too, the national flag outspread in the breeze,
The chrysanthemums colored from soft yellow to antique bronze.
But remember that my food is a pot of bitter tea!
And there is another “I.” Will you be afraid to know it?
The flylike thought crawling in the garbage can!
(Translated by Julia C. Lin)