Yang Lian is ‘n indrukwekkende digter. Punt. Saam met sy kollega’s Bei Dao en Duoduo het hulle bykans die ganse landskap van die Sjinese digkuns verander. En juis daarom is die Yang Lian-digbundel wat tydens die Dansende Digtersfees beskikbaar gaan wees, en wat ek graag jou aandag op wil vestig, die versamelbundel Riding Pisces – Poems from Five Collections, wat deur Brian Holton byeengebring en vertaal is.
Volgens die uitgewer se lokteks op hul webblad, die volgende: “Riding Pisces brings together a number of hard-to-find and uncollected texts from almost the fuill extent of Yang Lian’s career: from Masks and Crocodiles (Sydney, 1990—although the translations here are new), from the out-of-print collection Non-Person Singular (London, 1994), from Notes of a Blissful Ghost, published in Hong Kong in 2002, from the Sailor’s Home six-handed anthology (Shearsman Books, 2005), and from the as-yet uncollected Dark Blue Verses. Fot those already familiar with Yang Lian’s remarkable long poems, such as Concentric Circles, Where the Sea Stands Still and Yi, this volume offers an invaluable opportunity to fill the gaps in their knowledge.”
Nog ‘n gerekende vertaler van Yang Lian se gedigte, WN Herbert, het hom soos volg uitgelaat oor dié besonderse digwerk: “Yang Lian is one of the most astonishing poets I’ve read for years. He has a westernist, modernist sensibility allied with an ancient Chinese, almost shamanistic one. He can both excite and frighten you—like MacDiarmid meets Rilke with Samurai sword drawn!” — W.N. Herbert, The Scotsman.
Hieronder volg die boekbesonderhede en ‘n gedig.
[ISBN: 9781905700912, Sagteband, Shearman Books, R287.00]
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FORM
your darkness picks out the colours of a hospital
wind in the body blew outward and has become metal
needle point has scratched the pain of the vacuum
to make another human-shaped basket
fi sh fl esh has scrubbed the nails hammered in all around
seagulls riding the light of the entire morning
snow-white surgery speed in the eye
acquiescence in a previous life appears again
impure your girlish breast cannot escape
dropping bloody wings two powder puff s
too pure between the gears of the medicinal-smelling ocean
the round eyes of birds see not a thing
find that feather-stitched blue real as this
just like the lie you want
waking dreams ebb away through the fi ngers like water
again and again relying on the cracks in human fragility
© Yang Lian