(1937–)
Bai Qiu (Pai Ch’iu), pen name of He Jinrong, was born in Taizhong in central Taiwan. He learned Japanese first and started studying Chinese in 1946, a year after the retrocession of Taiwan to China. He graduated from Taizhong Business School and has worked for years in interior design. Having lived in Tainan and Taipei, he now lives in his hometown.
Bai Qiu started writing poetry in 1952 and won a prize at the first poetry competition sponsored by the Chinese Literature and Art Association in 1955. He was associated with all the major poetry societies in the 1950s and 1960s, including the Bamboo Hat Poetry Society, of which he was a founding member and editor of the society’s journal. To date he has published nine collections of poetry and a book of literary criticism. He is also an accomplished calligrapher who exhibits his work regularly.
Arms always held open
In a big, dark room, it stands out
In the slanting light, in front of me
Something seems to leap forward
Out of the darkness
Its squat frame, tensed, like
A catcher waiting for the ball
in the twilight mist on the playing field
Like a will, nakedly
Awaiting the roaring impact of a star
Loneliness breeds silence in life,
on this earth, it’s
A body without a voice—
Its unyielding form becomes
A shining sentence
Standing there in silence
(1964)
(translated by John Balcom)
The sky must have a mother’s warm bosom.
So broad, the warmth of blood can be felt,
always ready to
Comfort.
And Ah-huo lies wounded in the trenches
Shattered like a flower. His dying eyes look up
at the sky
Filled with resentment for life
Born unwillingly
Dying unwillingly
Then with difficulty he raises his gun
To shoot the sky dead
(1968)
(translated by John Balcom)
A cry leaks out of the morgue
There is no one inside
But a cry is left
In a room that has died countless times
The sunlight looks in at the window
The face of the morgue is clearer than ever
One living cry is left
In a world of absolute death
A drop of blood still struggles
In the tenaciously sucking proboscis of a fly
(1968)
(translated by John Balcom)
Awakening
I find a vine spread over the ground
Heavy with fruit
What else can I say?
I’m a stratum of rock
With a man’s tenacity
And you are just
A tiny, tiny seed
A small crack
A little warmth
Has spread now and become
The whole weight of my life
(1969)
(translated by John Balcom)
Still we live and must fly
In this boundless sky
The horizon forever receding far ahead
Leading us on, ever in pursuit
It ought to be near but when we look up,
it is always just as far away
It’s the same sky in which our forebears flew
The vast emptiness like an unvarying exhortation
Our wings like theirs beat against the wind
A continuation of their will
descending into an unending nightmare
Between the black earth
And the bottomless blue sky
The future is just the horizon line
Leading us on
In our pursuit we slowly die off, die like
a cooling sunset
Still we fly high in the boundless sky
As solitary as a leaf in the wind
And the frigid clouds
Coldly stare at us
(1969)
(translated by John Balcom)
Lock the whole world outside the bars
That stranger can’t be trusted
Those prying eyes
And eavesdropping ears
Forget existence
In a corner of this vacant place
Idle away life
Idle it away without regret
(The dawn light leaking from the sky
Strikes and hurts its wings)
Life untrusted
Sing for no one
Free the blood in its breast
Drop by drop
Oh, my only canary
Every day plucks feathers from its wings
Every day spits blood with its song
(1969)
(translated by John Balcom)
You sleep, a bed of vines
Dreaming
You still tightly twine around me
So weak, it’s as if
Someone must support you
But the sea keeps calling me from afar
Boundless freedom is there on her bosom
Yes, your bedroom is my death cell
And the unsleeping bird of night
Rebukes me for betraying the sky
Awake, I watch you
Thinking how you always need someone
to support you
But if I detected the smell of someone else
on you
I’d go mad
Oh, I’d best let you tie me down!
(1969)
(translated by John Balcom)
The crowd disperses noisily
back to bed
to embrace sweet-smelling women
Still the bronze statue upholds its principles
arms raised in a call to action
facing the empty square
But the wind
impishly scatters the leaves
to erase the footprints
(1970)
(translated by John Balcom)
Awakening from a poem
That lingering gliding sound
Is a restless moth
Flitting around the closed room
Its companion has been frightened away
It alone flutters in a dream
The gecko has eyed it for a long time
And has moved into a good position
After a few pauses
It strikes swiftly and silently
For some reason I cry out in sorrow
Feeling caught in the belly of reality
(1970)
(translated by John Balcom)