Contributions by Zheng Chouyu
Zheng Chouyu Zheng Chouyu (1933-), a well-known Chinese poet, was born in Mainland China and moved to Taiwan in 1949. His work abounds with classical Chinese poetic images, exemplified by this poem “A Mistake.” “A Mistake” belongs to “Boudoir Lament” (guisi 闺思), a popular subgenre in the long Chinese poetic tradition. “Boudoir Lament” poems were often written by male poets in the voice of a woman yearning for her absent lover/husband. Boudoir Lament poetry is often set in difficult times such as war, when lovers tended to be separated. It is said that this piece is a poetic treatment of the poet’s own childhood experience in wartime China in the 1940s, and that the archetype of the woman is the poet’s mother. It is a beautifully written poem that captures the spirit of the long poetic imagination of South Land (Jiangnan 江南), the cultural construct corresponding to the geographical region of the lower Yangzi River delta. It conjures up an image of waterland and lotus flowers, and people of talent, beauty, affluence, and cultural refinement. The feminine “South” is often contrasted to the masculine “North,” which is also a constructed place, connoting a borderland of bitterly cold winters and hardships.
错误
Published on
January
12th
of
2016
by
Zheng Chouyu
in Guest Languages.
郑愁予
我打江南走过
那等在季节里的容颜如莲花的开落
东风不来，三月的柳絮不飞
你的心如小小的寂寞的城
恰若青石的街道向晚
跫音不响，三月的窗扉紧掩
我达达的马蹄是美丽的错误
我不是归人，是个过客
A Mistake
Published on
January
12th
of
2016
by
Qiaomei Tang and Zheng Chouyu
in Poetry.
Zheng Chouyu
translated by Qiaomei Tang
I traveled through the South Land
A longing face blooms and fades like the lotus flower with the seasons
The east wind is yet to arrive, the willow’s March catkins are waiting to fly
your heart is like the small, lonely, walled city
like an alley of blue-green cobbles facing the setting sun
the crickets are not crying, the windows are drawn in March
The hooves of my horse clatter — it’s a beautiful mistake
I’m not coming home, I’m only passing through
READ THIS IN CHINESE
Image: Zhang Daqian, Sceneries of Jiangnan
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