Regulated Verse: Dead Water

2007/8/30 21:27:50

Whether vernacular Chinese is suitable for writing poetry will probably remain a question even after vernacular Chinese is extinct. Today I happened to reread Wen Yiduo's "Dead Water" and, as before, felt nothing. Vernacular poetry, in the hands of those so-called poets of today, continues to fester in its little clique.

In ancient times there were no "poets" — poetry was simply everyone's habitual mode of expression. Someone might object, saying that illiterate people couldn't write poetry. In fact, ancient folk songs — the finest poetry — all came from those who had never studied.

What is poetry? Only when the mind is thoroughly clear and luminous can there be poetry. Vernacular language can have its poetic possibilities, but certainly not the kind written by the likes of Wen Yiduo. This kind of so-called poetry belongs, at best, to the upper tier of recitation scripts for CCTV galas.

As for poetry written in vernacular, this ID finds it useful for one thing only: as lyrics for art songs to be set to music. That is all.

In idle boredom, I dashed off a regulated verse using "Dead Water" as the theme.

Dead Water

Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán

A single pool of dead water, one dark pupil

Ten thousand ages of deep seclusion facing the azure vault

Occasionally a ripple beneath the moonlight

Not to hold light or shadow amid chaotic clouds

Let heaven above shift between shade and shine

Let the mortal world fill with filth or purity as it will

Through all eternity, the same proud solitary hue

Heaven and earth in an instant — capturing the infinite

Appendix

Dead Water

Wen Yiduo

This is a ditch of hopelessly dead water,

No breeze can raise the slightest ripple on it.

Best to throw in more scraps of copper and iron,

Might as well pour in your leftover food and soup.

Perhaps the green on copper will become emerald,

Rust on tin cans will bloom into peach petals;

Let grease weave a layer of silky gauze,

And mold steam up a few patches of rosy clouds.

Let the dead water ferment into a ditch of green wine,

Floating with pearl-like white foam;

Small pearls' laughter becomes big pearls,

Then bitten open by flower-mosquitoes stealing wine.

And so a ditch of hopelessly dead water

Might yet boast a few splashes of brightness.

If the frogs can't stand the loneliness,

Then the dead water has managed to croak out a song.

This is a ditch of hopelessly dead water,

This is certainly no place for beauty.

Better to let ugliness come cultivate it —

And see what kind of world it creates.