Bei Dao
Bei Dao Poems
a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year
a conductor tattooing darkness
listens to the shortest pause
...
Debasement is the password of the base,
Nobility the epitaph of the noble.
See how the gilded sky is covered
...
I want to go to the other bank
The river water alters the sky's colour
and alters me
...
Lovers holding pits in their mouths
make vows and delight in each other
till the underwater infant
periscopes his parents
...
wolves of music weave their way at a run
hawthorns wheeze with clandestine laughter
turning a new leaf, tide's out
...
for Shanshan
The wave of that year
flooded the sands on the mirror
to be lost is a kind of leaving
...
a sower walks into the great hall
it's war out there, he says
and you awash in emptiness
you've sworn off your duty to sound the alarm
...
in Ramallah
the ancients play chess in the starry sky
the endgame flickers
a bird locked in a clock
...
at the end of a perfect day
those simple people looking for love
left scars on twilight
...
Waking up: the northern pine forest—
The urgent drum beats of the earth
The alcohol of sunlights stored in the tree trunks
Is stirring the ice of darkness
...
When the gate guard sinks into sleep
You turn back together with the storm
That which ages in the embrace is
The rose of time
...
As plum flowers revolt, the hostile dews
Safeguard the darkness engraved by the midday sword
The revolution will start next morning
...
Nocturnal horses gallop past over the streetlights
Sorrowful sound is omnipresent
I sit at the corner of the century
...
This book is so heavy, like an anchor
Sinking onto resurrectionary interpretations
Your face, like the clock on the other shore of the ocean
...
Day and night part at the top of a cypress
Wings draw in light's final rays
Sailing in youth-sheltering waves
Death turns psyche's compass
...
Before the fire-train enters the forest
The snowstorm in the fire-extinguisher falls asleep
You deign to listen to the past—
...
In the forgetting of tree and tree
Is the dog's lyric assault
At the pointless journey's endpoint
Night turns all gold keys
...
Coldcrow jackdaws piece themselves
Into night: black map
I've come back—return journeys
...
In a chilly morning of February
The oak has finally taken a grievous size
Father, before your photograph
...
TRANSLATED BY BONNIE S. MCDOUGALL
Debasement is the password of the base,
Nobility the epitaph of the noble.
See how the gilded sky is covered
With the drifting twisted shadows of the dead.
The Ice Age is over now,
Why is there ice everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered,
Why do a thousand sails contest the Dead Sea?
I came into this world
Bringing only paper, rope, a shadow,
To proclaim before the judgment
The voice that has been judged:
Let me tell you, world,
I—do—not—believe!
If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,
Count me as number thousand and one.
I don't believe the sky is blue;
I don't believe in thunder's echoes;
I don't believe that dreams are false;
I don't believe that death has no revenge.
If the sea is destined to breach the dikes
Let all the brackish water pour into my heart;
If the land is destined to rise
Let humanity choose a peak for existence again.
A new conjunction and glimmering stars
Adorn the unobstructed sky now;
They are the pictographs from five thousand years.
They are the watchful eyes of future generations.
...
Bei Dao Biography
Bei Dao (literally: "Northern Island", born August 2, 1949) is the pen name of Chinese poet Zhao Zhenkai. He was born in Beijing. He chose the pen name because he came from the north and because of his preference for solitude. Bei Dao is the most notable representative of the Misty Poets, a group of Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution. As a teenager, Bei Dao was a member of the Red Guards, the enthusiastic followers of Mao Zedong who enforced the dictates of the Cultural Revolution, often through violent means. He had misgivings about the Revolution and was "re-educated" as a construction worker, from 1969 to 1980. Bei Dao and Mang Ke founded the magazine Jintian (Today), the central publication of the Misty Poets, which was published from 1978 until 1980, when it was banned. The work of the Misty Poets and Bei Dao in particular were an inspiration to pro-democracy movements in China. Most notable was his poem "Huida" (回答, "The Answer") which was written during the 1976 Tiananmen demonstrations in which he participated. The poem was taken up as a defiant anthem of the pro-democracy movement and appeared on posters during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. During the 1989 protests and subsequent shootings, Bei Dao was at a literary conference in Berlin and was not allowed to return to China until 2006. (Three other leading Misty Poets — Gu Cheng, Duo Duo, and Yang Lian — were also exiled.) His then wife, Shao Fei, and their daughter were not allowed to leave China to join him for another six years. Since 1987, Bei Dao has lived and taught in England, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and the United States. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages, including five poetry volumes in English[6] along with the story collection Waves (1990) and the essay collections Blue House (2000) and Midnight's Gate (2005). Bei Dao continued his work in exile. His work has been included in anthologies such as The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry Since the Cultural Revolution (1990) and Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese poetry. Bei Dao has won numerous awards, including the Tucholsky Prize from Swedish PEN, International Poetry Argana Award from the House of Poetry in Morocco, the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. and the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. He is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Jintian was resurrected in Stockholm in 1990 as a forum for expatriate Chinese writers. He has taught and lectured at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Beloit College, Wisconsin, and is Professor of Humanities in the Center for East Asian Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.)
The Best Poem Of Bei Dao
New Year
a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year
a conductor tattooing darkness
listens to the shortest pause
hurry a lion into the cage of music
hurry stone to masquerade as a recluse
moving in parallel nights
who's the visitor? when the days all
tip from nests and fly down roads
the book of failure grows boundless and deep
each and every moment's a shortcut
I follow it through the meaning of the East
returning home, closing death's door
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5/13/2024 10:05:18 PM # 1.0.0.1119
