My Village: Selected Poems, 1966-2014 - Softcover

Sheng, Wu

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1938890795 ISBN 13: 9781938890796

Publisher: Zephyr Press, 2020

Synopsis

Wu Sheng has written vivid poems about rural life and the land since the 1960s, when he became one of Taiwan’s most popular poets. His poems are rooted in the soil, embued with an unshakable affinity for the people who till it, sweat over it, and eventually are buried in it, and serve as his personal response to the industrialization, urbanization and globalization of his vanishing world.

About this title

About the Authors

Wu Sheng, born in 1944, is a farmer, teacher, poet, essayist and environmental activist who lives in central Taiwan. He has written more than a dozen volumes of poems and essays, and in 2007, received the Wu Sanlian Literature Award, one of Taiwan’s most prestigious honors. In 2002, he and his wife spent a year exploring and reporting on the social and environmental conditions of Taiwan’s longest river, the Zhuoshui River. He also purchased land near his farm and created a park forested with trees native to Taiwan. Wu Sheng’s work was the first to be digitized for the National Museum of Taiwan Literature’s digital archives, and many of his poems have been set to music in two published sets of cds.

John Balcom, PhD., is a translator of Chinese literature, whose previous books for Zephyr Press include Abyss, by Ya Hsien (a finalist for the PEN Poetry in Translation Award), Grass Roots, by Xiang Yang, and Driftwood and Stone Cell, both by Lo Fu. Other recent publications include Frontier Taiwan: An Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry (contributor), Wintry Night by Li Qiao (co-translator), The City Trilogy by Chang His-kuo, There’s Nothing I Can Do When I think of You Late at Night, by Cao Naiqian, and Taiwan’s Indigenous Writers: An Anthology of Stories, Essays, and Poems, the last two of which won Northern California Book Awards. He teaches at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Rice Straw

Sheaths of rice straw
Left in deserted fields
Tremble in a dry wind

Under a not so warm
Yet not so cold afternoon sun
The old people of my village wither away
In crumbling courtyards

The old people of my village finally becoming
The sheaths of rice straw
Who remembers
They once flourished, blossomed and bore grain

The life and fate of rice straw
Is the story of everyone in my village

(1972)

One Kilometer of Coastline

Another development memo
Orders the saws to mow down
Thousands of trees, felling them one after another

The seabirds have no place to perch
They can't speak, all they can do is clamor
Circling in the darkening light of dusk

Another stretch of coastline
Instantly loses a screen
With an opening, the wind-whipped sand
Engulfs a run-down fishing village

Every sigh from my coastal
Cities and villages, set sadly adrift
Becomes a thirsty longing
For a kilometer-long stretch of coastline
Windbreaks to withstand the wind and dryness

They spread dense roots to hold the sand in place
Wave green branches
Like green scarves blowing in the wind
Blocking the cold wind from the sea

O, if only a kilometer-long stretch of shoreline
Windbreaks, green and luxuriant
Can work in concert with the green mountains
To protect the environment of this lovely isle

(1999) Translations © John Balcom

Edition details

• Publisher: Zephyr Press
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 1938890795
• ISBN 13: 9781938890796
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 180