Born in Taipei, Luo Zhicheng (Lo Chih-ch’eng) graduated from the Department of Philosophy of National Taiwan University. After working as editor for China Times for two years, he went to study at University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he earned an M.A. in East Asian Studies and completed course work in the doctoral program. Since returning to Taiwan, he has assumed various editorial positions at newspapers and magazines and has taught at several universities. Active in the media, including television and advertising, he is now the publisher of the travel magazine To Go and teaches at Soochow University, Taiwan.
Luo published his first book of poems, which he not only self-financed but also designed and illustrated, in 1975. He has published five books of poetry, two books of prose, a volume of critical essays, and various translations. Already an established poet in the 1970s, he has continued to influence poets of a younger generation.
“I have always wanted to write a poem for you
but the secret of the love between us
is family property that must not be squandered.”
One day we will go to the banks of the great lake, and
while He is busy sorting and counting all the fish
we’ll help Him sort and count the fragrant flowers and the waterbirds.
When the stars arise, having washed their hands and faces,
with our wandering souls, we’ll
help Him survey the soil.
Then, squatting on the generous gaze
of the ridges in the fields
we’ll chat with a perfect silence that carries the rustle of leaves
in the wind, our serene smiles slowly turning with the night skies.
One day we will be born from the fields
plowed by our sons
never again to sing sadly of the flesh,
our blessing passed on to posterity’s
indomitable forehead—
had we not stopped the scorching sun long ago
it would have cast their shoulders like iron;
had we not stopped the floods long ago
they would have given them trunks full of
severely frowning wisdom.
One day we will go to heaven
to open up wasteland
in between constellations, fencing off our fields
compiling our county annals
cultivating our vegetable gardens.
At that time, please watch me
my silver forehead melting in deep sleep.
The livestock are drinking beside my pillow
the village women are knotting fishnets from the light of the waves.
On the banks of the great lake
even if night’s curtain were drawn tighter, it could not cover
this vast and fertile earth—look
at that distant dawn, where night can’t make ends meet.
Father: and our family
will thrive, trees in a forest
like towering masts on the sea of time.
(1978)
(translated by Maghiel van Crevel)
1 before growing up, we must
let our love unfold
2 like a drunken magician
with lively words and phrases
cooking a soup brimming with flavor and aroma
it doesn’t matter whether it’s poetry
my quest is for a taste of beauty and nutrition
3 coming back to life happens every day
by a black fly washing its feet, my thinking
is stirred into rippled waves
in a dreamland thin as the cicada’s wings
now sinking now floating
I am washed up on the shores of darkness
clinging to matters of great concern
this morning
I have awakened yet again
4 that suitcase needing to be packed anew every day, full of
diaries, street names, insomnia, and exam papers
at some time in the past
I lost it on the way
I need to write them anew every day
5 I will allow you to lie to me
at least another thousand times
—from your sincere eyes, who would still crave
those trite true facts?
(published 1979)
(translated by Maghiel van Crevel)
The wolf
there’s something sad about it.
Driven from paradise, forever
forced into pursuit, but hopelessly so,
rummaging through chests and cupboards, to discover …
But there is no one to listen to its story.
Cold dewdrops cover
hairy hot limbs:
after a night of mad running
talons and fangs still rage
with the energy of the swell after a storm.
There is a loneliness that never gets tired,
a loneliness whose gaze lights the first rays of morning
while feverish, hot breath stirs hollow body cavities.
The wolf
has a sadness about it.
It does not share—
it does not share in other people’s dreams.
Its vigorous life is not dedicated to any goal.
The wolf neglects itself like
a king drawing up a list of those to be banished.
The wolf attacks, and bites
The wolf always turns its back on
the awestruck stares of a herd of deer—
because deer don’t understand:
wolves
have their soft spots too.
(1986)
(translated by Maghiel van Crevel)
—TO THE ETERNAL “LAST READER”
This year’s spring rains
are the beginning of an ice age that will blossom in 20,000 years
but nobody has noticed.
I myself and, in two days’ time,
Reader A reading this poem in the damp open-air store are the only exceptions.
We are concerned that this city, before even
reaching the peak of its civilization
will get stuck in the snowy season of deep, unending sleep
and that all scenery and garbage of the subtropics
will turn into oilfields and coal mines for the next civilization
and long, long before the next civilization
on this afternoon
I and Reader A who has not yet read this poem
find shelter from the rain in a bar widely known for its bleak humanist spirit
carrying under our arms an umbrella we’ve had no time to open and a
newspaper forever worried about recession
with an expression on our faces just like
a flag drenched through and through.
Flags will normally yearn for storm, not balk at being blown into folds
but if drenched a flag will end up as one great sticky bundle
seemingly harboring some sign
or thought
or scheme
conning its way into this evil environment
that lies between the late twentieth and the late nineteenth century
or between the previous ice age and the next.
As for us—the estrangement between me and Reader A
is a result of the fact that
we don’t know that all the while we’ve been shoulder to shoulder as nonvoting delegates
and our weary eyes conceal a mutual longing.
In two days’ time, Reader A in the open-air store will
be reading this poem, and briefly
feel attracted by its message
without ever realizing that he’s met with Author A
at civilization’s every evil hour …
(1993)
(translated by Maghiel van Crevel)
We are awed and fascinated by the jungle
that is this bookstore.
In a district in decline
behind a number plate forever overlooked by the postman
hundreds of miles of bookshelves of all descriptions and
stone tiles, wood paneling, and
muddy corridors
congested, sprawling
stretch knowledge all the way into
the reaches that electricity has not yet reached:
covered in cobwebs, in mystery miasma,
the foyers of mice and moths, sewers,
carpets in knee-deep water and
secret rooms with keys forever lost …
And bookshelves, tens upon tens, carrying huge animal samples,
ruined flags, family emblems,
windows sealed shut, drawers with memory loss
gape and gawk at us, putting on display
the savage face of human wisdom …
Nobody, not even the eighty-nine-year-old third-generation storekeeper, Mr. L.,
nobody knows the bookstore’s true dimensions—
not even Professor T., who last year, in pursuit of some remaindered book,
was submerged forever in the quicksand of letters,
or the critic who, after many years, came bursting back out of a mural
or the new breed of bats that had sunk their teeth into his neck …
Really, even in the tightly guarded stack rooms at the eastern end of Section B
in the shrubbery mostly made of biographies and fables
we will occasionally run into the
skeleton of one who lost their way …
We are fascinated by the labyrinth
that this bookstore truly is!
In an age filled with breathless change
we are close to tears when singing the praises
of that immovable, insoluble, unrevealing iceberg
and to read—
to read those rare, abstruse souls
and those indefatigable daydreams
is the ritual sacrifice of our youth …
Like a giant beast deep in hiding
from behind a quiet shop front the bookstore engages with the outside world
but beyond its range upon range of bookshelves
it is still growing
like a newborn star in its energy, its violence
and its unimaginable possibilities …
Toward evening
we always hear, far and near,
the sounds of woodwork coming loose, of stealthy, silent steps,
of aborigines moving furniture among broken bamboo slips and torn paper….
These fearful things I have long ceased to fear.
On tiptoe I pick out a flora from the Yin dynasty
and through the gap on the shelf comes the sound of water.
I turn the pages in concentration
sitting straight as a sundial
tiny as an ant
and then exchange it for another book
curious, searching, reading
until knowledge closes its doors …
(1994)
(translated by Maghiel van Crevel)