(1955– )
Born in Switzerland to parents who were Chinese diplomats, Yang Lian grew up in Beijing and began writing in his late teens as the tumultuous Cultural Revolution was winding down. A participant in the Beijing Democracy Wall Movement in 1978, Yang was also an important contributor to the underground journal Today. In 1983, Yang published his long poem “Norlang,” which taps deep into the mythological past and present of China, searching for a reality beyond what is dictated by ideology. His work soon became a target of criticism during the Anti–Spiritual Pollution Campaign launched by the government. Winner of the Nonino International Literature Prize in 2012 and the International Capri Prize in 2014, Yang has lived in self-imposed exile in Europe since 1988.
A Tibetan male deity. There is a waterfall and a snowcapped mountain on the high plateau between Sichuan and Gansu, named after this god.
Suntide
The plateau like a raging tiger
burns at the shore of creation’s torrent
Light! There is only light;
the setting sun floods
in a perfect sphere
earth hangs in space
The pirate sail opens to the arm,
rock to chest
eagle to heart
The shepherd’s solitude swallowed
in the endlessly undulating brush
The prayer-flag fluttering
a sad, shrill faith
slowly rising through the azure
For which departed cloud
do you stand in silent tribute now?
Crawling beneath the feet of the ages,
enduring the demands of the dusk
A myriad tombstones like plows
drop anchor at the wasteland’s end
Abandoned by each other, forever abandoned:
returning copper to earth,
letting the fresh blood rust
Are you still pouring tears
upon every thunderclap?
Each year the west wind wakes the gold-panner’s fate
from the gravelly deeps
The cliffside trail has collapsed
there is no path along the precipice
the sundial in the cave is black
And the heavens of the ancient shaman once again reveal
the riddle of the seven lotus flowers
Light! Sacred crimson glaze
fire-worship
fire-dance
Lave the soft moans
bestow upon the firmament
the tranquillity of a shattered urn
Are you finally roused by this vast moment?
—the sun waits
in ecstasy
for the meteoric
apocalypse
Golden Tree
I am god of the waterfall,
I am god of the snow mountain
Mighty master of the crescent moon
Leader of all rivers
The sparrow makes his nest in my bosom
The dense grove conceals
the path to the secret pool
My passion like a herd of bucks
newly come of age
My desire like the spring season
Condenses tumult
I am a golden tree
Gold-harvest tree
Fierce challenge rises from the abyss
Casts aside the admonitions of timid bystanders
Until my wave
fills it to the brim
Roaming woman
surface glistening
Who is she
this woman that compels me to drink?
My gaze holds back the night
Twelve horns hold back the pomegranate wind
Every place I come to
is without shadow
Every berry touched is a bright star
in the center of the universe
rising
Possessing you
I
the true man
Blood Sacrifice
Cluster the crimson pattern on the white skull,
make an offering to sun and war
With blood of sacrificial infant
blood of circumcision
Nourish my never-broken life
Obsidian knife rips earth’s chest
heart raised high
Countless banners like the drumbeat of a wrestling master
raging in the sunset
I live, I smile,
I lead you proudly to conquer death
—sign your name in blood for history
adorn the ruins
the ceremony
And so,
wipe out your sorrows!
Let the precipice
seal in the mountain spirit
The vulture dives and dives again
like a gusting tempest
pecking eye sockets clean
On the bitter sacrificial altar
the racing
falling bodies
bloom
Long-lost hopes return
on the sharp edge of starvation
casting screams and eulogies
Where have you learned to discover
the solitary grandeur of the arched horizon?
Therefore
let the blood flow
the glory of meeting death
is stronger than death
Pay tribute to me! Forty virgins will sing
for your good fortune
Burned bodies like bronze bells
parade at the fast and during the watch
That nobly abject
innocently criminal
purely filthy
tide
Vast memory
my mystery accompanies
the shuddering ecstasy
continuously becoming
being born
The pagoda towers aloft
guiding the mountain dusk
on a heavenward path
You are free—
from the pool of blood
approach the divine
Gatha
Despairing of expectation
Expectant with despair
Expectation is endless despair
Despair is perfect expectation
Expectation may never begin
Despair may never end
The summons may only sound once
The greatest resonance is stillness
Midnight Celebration
A form based on a folk-elegy of Sichuan, using the original section headings
1. INTROIT
Lead:
Midnight had fallen, brilliant darkness unfolds its tiger skin, radiates a brilliant green. Distance. The fragrance of the grass touches our hearts, the dew dampens the heavens. Who has gathered us together?
Chorus:
Oh, so many! So many!
Lead:
The constellations have tilted, imperceptibly sleep fills with the wind soughing in the pines, blowing through strange arms. We are squeezed tightly together, dreaming of a bonfire, big and bright. The children also sleep.
Chorus:
Oh, so many! So many!
Lead:
Our souls tremble, they thirst, searching for a space amid the pitch-black leaves. Behind the vertiginous silence there is a sound, slowly melting into moonlight. Is this then the light we have been searching for?
Chorus:
Oh, so many! So many!
2. PIERCING THE FLOWER
This is the proclamation of Norlang:
The one road is a transparent road
The only road is a supple road
I say this: follow that stream of praise
The sunset has precipitated
the flow of blood has melted
Guide of the waterfall
of the snow mountain
Women
smiling
rippling
naked
alluring
Come from every corner,
dancing
to bathe
Transcend illusion
partake of my purity
3. CODA
Now
the plateau like a raging tiger
receives the infinite caress of transparent fingers
Now
the tousled forest spreads its ravaged beauty,
resplendent, stark beauty
Announcing
to the mountain torrent
to the gravel-heaped destruction of the village
the harmony of the universe
Tree roots
like thick ankles
keep stubbornly walking
The homeless children
smile
Pride identity
rise up from within death
the lily plays the music of my divinity
My light
illumines you
even in your meteoric
fall
A golden summons
returns anguish to the sea
the never-tranquil sea
Over the black night
over oblivion
over the twittering, faint cry of dream talk
Now
in the center of the universe
I say: live on—
Heaven and earth have begun.
Birds are calling. All
nearly
a revelation
(Translated by Alisa Joyce, with John Minford)
from the Poem-cycle Banpo
1
DEATH AND MASKS
Good-bye, storms; good-bye, sun—
Planetary masquerade, you’ll never find me
However your sudden backward glance may seem to catch my eye
Don’t worry, we can’t hurt each other now
Jeers and curses, tears and lies, after my death
Bother me no more than the maggots in my ears
Look! Living steles walk on the yellow earth
Grow tall and black like a raven sky
I lie underground, my contempt for the gods complete
For men, I need only one mask: tears, laughter
You’ll never find me, you can’t kill me again
Here, I feel safe at last—thank you
2
FUNERAL PROCESSION
North of the village, the road vanishes, calm begins;
Who am I?
North of the village,
A muddy stream of people draped in tenebral night;
Whose are these two hands that raise me?
Avoided by the sun, surging like the tide;
Who takes this last step for me?
Dirge;
Who gives me this somber, ancestral cadence?
Earth;
Who are these travelers by my side,
with their faces like stone?
Suddenly distant, stranger!
Who digs my grave?
Gathered together in haste, roaming far away;
Who shares this warm darkness with me?
Body silent, soul raging;
Whose is the wailing that surrounds me?
The road vanishes, calm begins; in the anticipated distress,
Whose name shall I question first?
History, humble funeral rites of mighty mankind;
Whom shall I raise with my hands?
Robbing eyes of water, seeping breathing eagles;
For whom have I taken this last step?
Within the yellow earth and without;
Whom shall I bid follow the somber, ancestral cadence?
Earth, long forged into a cauldron of torture;
Whose crimes shall I declare?
O wind, the grassland is scorched black!
For whom shall I dig a grave?
From one mistake to the next, from one home to another;
Whom shall I meet again in the warm darkness?
Heart, a black cat, claws hope;
Whom shall I surround with my wailing?
3
DESCENT
She was her mother’s dear child
Softly drifting down like a snowflake
She was the glimmering evergreen in her own dreams
The sun’s patterned kerchief was torn
Removed an expanse of damp shade
Who knows why
The trembling earth failed to catch her
A tiny petal of white
She fell into a cold gray urn
Buried with strung stone beads and ear pendants
Buried with unfinished dreams
Who knows why
(Translated by Pang Bingjun and John Minford, with Sean Golden)
You are not hereMarks of this pen
Just written are swept off by a wild wind
Emptiness like a dead bird soars across your face
Funereal moon is a broken hand
Turning back your days
Back to the page when you do not exist
In writing You
Bask in your deletion
Like another’s voice
Bits of bones are spat carelessly in a corner
Hollow sound of water brushing water
Carelessly enters breathing
Enters a pear and ceases to look at others
Skulls all over the ground are you
In words and lines you grow old in a night
Your poetry invisibly traversing the world
—January 13, 1990
Masks and Crocodile (selections)
1
Masks are born of faces
copy faces
but ignore faces
masksare born on blank pages
cover the blankness
but still there is only blankness
2
This word has your face
intricately carved
woodenly polished a thousand times
finallyforgotten torn down
spread out all bloody
you hear God retching
3
Faces crumble silently
nightmares in the flesh
inch by inch chisel you away
shipwrecks
and fallen-out teeth
chatter with mud and slime
(Translated by Mabel Lee)