Born in Zhanghua in central Taiwan, Lin Hengtai (Lin Heng-t’ai) received a B.A. in education from National Taiwan Normal University and taught middle school for twenty-five years. Since he retired, he has taught Japanese at various colleges.
In 1947 Lin became a member of the Silver Bell Literary Society, which disbanded in 1949 under political repression. He published his first book of poetry in Japanese in 1949 but had begun writing poetry in Chinese a year earlier. In the 1950s he was active in the Modern Poetry Quarterly and played a major role, through both creative work and literary theory, in the Modernist School founded by Ji Xian in 1956. In 1964 he became a founding member of the Bamboo Hat Poetry Society and served as the first chief editor of its journal, emphasizing modernity with a local identity. Lin coined the term “the translingual generation” in 1967 to refer to the generation of Taiwanese poets who made the painstaking transition from Japanese to Chinese as the medium of their creative work. To date Lin has published five books of poetry and three volumes of literary criticism.
on a day of too much sunlight
a chicken balances on one leg, thinking
autumn, 20 October 1947
how can too much sunlight unbalance that leg
under a tree that has shed all its leaves?
(published 1949)
(translated by John Balcom)
books are piled on the desk
every time I look at them
a thought comes to mind
because most of their authors
are no longer among the living
some died of tuberculosis
some died in revolutions
some died insane
their books are nothing less than
gifts sent from the underworld
sighing with emotion
I select one
turn the pages one by one
my fingers like ascetic pilgrims
who sadly prostrate themselves at each temple
thus, I pray
I light my pipe
a thread of smoke rises as if from an incense burner
(published 1949)
(translated by John Balcom)
crops next
to more
crops next
to more
crops next
to more
sunlightsunlight shines long on the ears
sunlightsunlight shines long on the neck
(1959)
(translated by John Balcom)
windbreak
outside another
windbreak
outside another
windbreak
outside another
but the sea and the ranged waves
but the sea and the ranged waves
(1959)
(translated by John Balcom)
NO. 1
a cracked riverbed
leaves behind
faint traces in time
with no compass points
to pin space down
history shrinks into a parabola
memories that don’t look back
brand the mountains
in their wrinkled valleys
NO. 2
a skein of many stories there
like roots
tangled
the horizon
dragging along its shadow
the setting sun
often winces, stealing a glance
dragging along half-ashamed
history
NO. 3
owing to the thorn’s urgent demands
sharpness took shape
a point originated
in a dream from before history
evoking fleshly pain
spurting warm blood
O, the earth locked in ice and snow
is warm!
NO. 4
pile up silence
in a tomb for time
the characters have become skeletons
the setting already has turned to ashes
the theme, after flashing lightning
scurried on the open wilds of the imagination
red earth has been hammered into iron and steel
small bits of coal have been made into diamonds
NO. 5
after the fruit’s flesh is
slowly eaten
a longan pit
is then tossed away
like an eye it stares
out of a garbage heap
resentfully eyeing its peeled
skin littering the ground
NO. 6
without language
this world
would probably hold no surprises
with no surprises
this world
would probably lack love
without love
this world
would probably be easy to part with
NO. 7
on a resplendent street
a crowd of shadows
hides in the bright light
a man-made moon
hanging on the wall
is a fragile object of glass
silently buried
underneath pleasure
is the moment never to awaken again
NO. 8
at the edge of pain there is no pain
but an itch
even a kind of pleasure
at the heart of pain there is no pain
but a heat
to make one sweat
only one who observes pain feels pain
but it is poetry
that strangely enough brings tears
(1982–1983)
(translated by John Balcom)