Born in Taipei, Jian Zhengzhen (Chien Cheng-chen) graduated from National Zhengzhi University with a B.A. in Western languages and literatures. He went on to earn an M.A. in foreign languages and literatures from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from University of Texas, Austin. Currently he is a professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Zhongxing University.
To date Jian has published six volumes of poetry and four books of literary criticism in Taiwan and China. He has also served as chief editor of the Epoch Poetry Quarterly.
Open the drawer, and a
crow flies out, turns into
the print, large and fine, on the morning paper
the telephone rings, the various sounds
inside the receiver grow many
waving fingers
a portrait
leans crookedly against a lamppost
a handkerchief that sopped up sweat
sinks ponderously in the wind
the sound of a helicopter on regular patrol
scatters a flock of startled pigeons
and what echoes back
is the tick-tock of a wall clock
(1988)
(translated by Andrea Lingenfelter)
Are you cold?
The wind that comes from who knows where
pierces the icy chill of every dynasty
bores into the enlarged pores of your skin
You can’t keep your hair neat
Randomly it twists into a bun
Randomly it is blown about
into every style of the twentieth century
Forty years have passed
Does that give you the right to stand on this ancient wall
wallowing in emotion
like a diva bemoaning her personal suffering?
Maybe you’ve seen the cracks in the gray earth and stone
But in former lives these stones were a pile of yellow earth
long ago traded away to the vast desolation
along with countless bodies rendered phantom
Are you hot,
climbing the steep stairs
and stepping into sweltering history?
Perhaps you’ve seen sweat become channels
that drown sweating men?
The mountains and rivers those two feet walked over
became an earthen wall
and before the blisters on those feet had healed
there at the foot of the wall
were composed echos of a finale
The round bright moon always hangs from either end of a shoulder pole
like a brilliant white and somber face,
looking ahead to the future and back to the past
Earth and stones were piled up
Did they say it was so
that future generations could stand in the moon palace
and regard this sinuous wound in the world of men
with admiration?
That year, countless women
took limp twigs
in the moonlight
and hung themselves, their slender bodies
casting long shadows
and making a tranquil composition of chilling beauty
that appeared to float upon the waters
Though the waters could not contain the press of corpses
or the songs of farewell
that caused the waves to rise up
Voices grow cold in the wind
We pass through the indistinct history of this ancient wall
Our swollen ankles
return from History
the world overturned beneath our feet
Many souls, restless for a thousand years,
stand guard at the passes, and under the bridge,
directing us back to the present
back to these
banners
that flap in the wind
(published 1990)
(translated by Andrea Lingenfelter)
A needle shuttles in and out of the fabric
in the dancing candlelight I
try to discover what is troubling my mother
Vague sentences
cut short by a sleepless rooster
It’s like a button that won’t fasten
and is simply let be
Afterward, we wait together
for daybreak after the typhoon
The photograph of my late father on the wall
hasn’t taken back its smile
We help each other sort out our feelings
spreading some on the table
but the insects that bore through the table legs
have already gotten started
(published 1991)
(translated by Andrea Lingenfelter)
I wait until dark to read the letter
so that a shaft of light coming out of the darkness
can illuminate the waiting
Of everything
beside the letter paper:
a blank sheet of writing paper,
a telephone and
a letter opener
The blade shines coldly
I see, in the shadow of the lamp
a striped mosquito circling around
I drive off the growing chill by reading the letter
Maybe the mosquito has heard the news of autumn outside the window
It alights on my left hand, which holds the letter
My heart is itching
but the mosquito must pay
for the itching of my hand
A trace of blood, neither large nor small,
soon obscures
the nickname you call me by
Suddenly, I give a start
You, over a thousand miles away
are certainly at this moment
watching the rise and fall of air outside your window
Maybe a clear river
is afloat with hard-to-decipher reflections
Maybe white snow on a mountaintop
is tinted already with early morning light
Maybe the surrounding red maples
Bear a little-known bloody radiance
(1996)
(translated by Andrea Lingenfelter)