Born Chen Wuxiong in Nantou County in central Taiwan, Huan Fu also publishes prose fiction and literary criticism under the name Chen Qianwu (Ch’en Ch’ien-wu).
Like Zhan Bing, he belongs to the so-called “translingual generation” (see the introduction). With the publication in 1939 of his first poem, “A Moment on a Summer Night,” he started out writing poetry in Japanese. In 1945, he was sent by the Japanese colonial government as a member of the “Taiwanese special volunteer forces” to Java and, to everyone’s surprise, returned alive to Taiwan in 1946. “Carrier Pigeon,” included here, is based on that experience.
After the retrocession of Taiwan to China in 1945, Huan Fu studied Chinese and a decade later was able to write poetry in Chinese. His first collection of poems in Chinese came out in 1963, and he has since published more than ten volumes. He was a founding member of the Bamboo Hat Poetry Society in 1964 and has served as editor of the Bamboo Poetry Bimonthly, the longest-running poetry journal in Taiwan, and Poetry Prospect, which he founded in 1965. When the municipal Taizhong Cultural Center was established in 1976, he was appointed director. Huan Fu has been active in promoting exchanges among poets of Taiwan, Japan, and Korea and has translated much modern Japanese and Korean poetry. He also writes fiction and critical essays. In 1979 he won the Wu Zhuoliu Literature Prize for the short story “Hunting the Woman Criminal.”
A thread of spider silk straight down
Two threads of spider silk straight down
Three threads of spider silk straight down
Thousands of threads of spider silk straight down
Surrounding me in
—a prison of spider silk
Countless spiders cast to the ground
Each turns a somersault, making a show of defiance
Then imprints my face, my clothes, with marks of sadness
I am stained all over with the marks of bitter struggle.
Ah, mother, I am so restless and homesick
I miss your gentle hands brushing away
These threads of troublesome rain that entangle me.
(1961)
(translated by Jim Weldon and Michel Hockx)
Escaping into the forest
I stretch out my arms like
Fir branches straight up to the sky
I want to kick apart dead leaf piles of bad habits
But ten thousand annual rings are heavy on my heart, seal me up
In stagnant history
Vacancy fills the space between trees
The turmoil of a century settles here
Waiting quietly for the subtropic buds to open
A new annual ring starts breathing….
I am no pagan
O forest tell me your joy
O forest tell me your woe
(1962)
(translated by Jim Weldon and Michel Hockx)
Buried in Southeast Asia
My death, I forgot to bring it back
There, islands are dotted with coconut groves
Winding beaches, and
Natives paddling dugouts at sea….
I allayed the natives’ suspicions
Crossed rows of coconut palms
Went into the dark dense jungle
At long last hiding my death in a corner
And so
In the midst of the second fierce world war
I lived carefree
Though I served as a heavy gunner
Fought from island to island
Showered by enemies’ fifteen-millimeter shells
Target for their shooting
Hearing the sound of the enemies’ movements
Still I did not die
Because my death was long since hidden in a forest corner
Only when the unrighteous warlords surrendered
And I returned to the motherland
Did I think of
My death, that I forgot to bring back
Ah, that only death of mine, buried on a Southeast Asian island
I believe someday it will come flying, like a carrier pigeon
Come flying, bringing back news of the south
(1964)
(translated by Jim Weldon and Michel Hockx)
An indelible small mole marks the deer’s shoulder just like so many other shoulders before its eyes all is yellow with acacia blossom the yellow dusk draws in but the evening sun still wants to reflect all ablaze the youth of the peaks and spurs and the ridge of Jade Mountain as always imposing and lovely this is no longer a temporary recline the frail wild deer lifts its head to look at Jade Mountain looks at the mole on its shoulder the mole’s wound has torn open a scarlet peony
Blood spurts out at the speed of remembering letting the deer comprehend everything with the final curtain slowly dropping the threat of the hunter’s sharp arrows weakens
Soon blood-red twilight fills far-distant memory the wild deer’s instincts savor the moment of calm before death and recollection is a business of eternity they the forefathers of the Ami tribe once had seven suns just imagine: those seven suns were sure to scorch the love of tawny skins everyone sighed as superfluous authority blighted the rich harvest of desire so the Ami patriarchs formed a band and went hunting hunting the suns up hill and down dale—again the blood spurts out
A pure and scarlet growing peony—now there is only one sun now so much ambition so much love belongs to the indifference of the wilderness in the indifferent reality the trickles of blood on the deer’s shoulder flow endlessly twitch endlessly but the deer has had no thought of cursing in complaint and the wound gradually stops hurting the shafts of light that once blazed hot shining on the endless tribulation of success and failure those stories of success and failure are distant now
The knoll where the deer lies is deadly still and dark the vast and beautiful wildwood belongs forever to the dead the deer is thinking and thinking its misted-over cornea can no longer reflect those hideous faces that tyrannize the mountains nor its companions contending for the hind’s love oh! love after the exhaustion of ecstasy love drifts off to sleep to … sleep …
(1966)
(translated by Jim Weldon and Michel Hockx)
Oh Mazu
You’ve been sitting here so long Your feet
Must have gone to sleep years ago
On history’s sandalwood dais
The sandalwood throne
In the hall filled with incense smoke
Amid the flattery of the crowds
Has been smoked tar-black….
It’s very rude of me to say this
But You ought to relinquish Your shrine
Your seat
To a young maiden
Compared to
Cosmic wars with satellites flying all over the place
That seat of Yours is …
Oh Mazu
If I’ve said the wrong thing
Please forgive me
But do I really mean to force You
To hand over that glorious chastity
That You’ve preserved for over a thousand years
Your bound feet
Your sad dignity
To a young maiden?
No! But
No one should monopolize a position forever
If I’ve said the wrong thing
Please forgive me
Elderly gentlemen
Of the Temple Management Committee!
(1968)
(translated by Jim Weldon and Michel Hockx)
FIND AN HONORIFIC FOR MOSQUITOS
Ceaselessly humming they fly over
To bite the back of my palsied hand
Call it a stopover
Stopover just to draw a little life-giving blood for themselves
Just
How many mosquitos are truly helpless
How many mosquitos are worthy of our sympathy
On the back of my hand
On the bare expanse of territory
My hand is getting more and more palsied.
(1970)
(translated by Jim Weldon and Michel Hockx)
In the morning shadows are long
In the evening shadows are even longer
When the dictator sun presses down on the top of my head
My shadow can’t lengthen out
It is like my fragile self-respect
My self-respect dragging—
A shadow now short now long
Shadows of different lengths the color
Also differing I wish for
My shadow to be longer and deeper
Now my shadow is so deep it’s turned black
I know if my shadow gets so long
That it stretches over the top of that low wall
This world will collapse
No! It’s me who’ll collapse
I’ll end up all battered and bruised
But everything in this world will still exist
(1970)
(translated by Jim Weldon and Michel Hockx)
A rain shower
sweeps by
a puddle of water on the deserted ground
reflects the quietness
of sawed-off
annual tree
rings
The veined rings
will slowly
soak in much of
the water
then they
will come alive quietly
in desolate history books
(1983)
(translated by Michelle Yeh)