Yao Feng’s ‘fishing’
it’s the weekend
I went fishing
the fish I set free last year
must be adults by now
F
Xia Fang’s ‘Reflection on the Westminster Bridge Attack March 2017’
two gunshots ring out on the street
fell and scatter the passers-by
when you stand by the bridge
or simply walk along
the street lamp contemplates ripened wheat
ripe heads bent low
he said he liked the word fertile
and that blood must atone for blood
‘Unresolved’ by Irina Frolova
I want to move on
from the middle of this nowhere
to other eyes, hands, lips.
But I also want to stay,
muddy the waters,
make it seem like there is more
there.
Make you wonder
where I was last weekend,
who I did last night; search
my body for hints,
look to it for validation
of your relevance. Dig deep
for the foundation of us.
‘Unresolved’ by Irina Frolova
I want to move on
from the middle of this nowhere
to other eyes, hands, lips.
But I also want to stay,
muddy the waters,
make it seem like there is more
there.
Make you wonder
where I was last weekend,
who I did last night; search
my body for hints,
look to it for validation
of your relevance. Dig deep
for the foundation of us.
Yao Feng #15
Xing Hua Temple
why is it the Buddha – far from the madding crowd on the hill – sits lounges an air of serenity, over a lotus throne while Jesus has his blood shed on a Good Friday cross?
I'll go upstairs with you and we'll see the gilt-decked Buddha projecting dazzling gold in a world of fireworks
you served the Buddha with incense and prayer I didn't stoop to words of long life or good luck
one always ends up hitting the wall Bodishattvas climb down at last the rail on which she leans overlooks inequalities among the world's mountains
(translated by Kit Kelen)
《大兴华寺》
为什么菩萨 都供奉在远离尘嚣的山上 端坐于莲花宝座，神态安详 而不像耶稣，表情痉挛 在十字架上流血受难
我陪你拾阶而上 终于看到菩萨身披黄金 在俗世的烟火中 射出耀眼的金光
你向菩萨奉香祈愿 我却没有俯身 也没有念念有词 祈望长寿与吉祥
我只想走进围栏 把菩萨请下宝座 与她一起凭栏远眺 这人间不平的群山
Choir Solo
Part 9 of Yao Feng’s ‘Cape Verde Fragments’
being surrounded by the sea is a destiny
it will never turn around
it stands on the reefs, commanding you to sing
you don’t have much
but singing makes you wealthy
because of song
birds fly out from your throat
because of singing
flowers come up through the stones
(translated by Kit Kelen and Fei Chen)
Nicholafei Chen 陳飛：物語獵人
In 2015 Nicholafei Chen was undertaking a Masters degree in creative writing at Macau University. He was also providing a range of translation services. Born and raised in Guizhou, Chen is a story hunter, a traveler, a graphic designer, a photographer and, most recently, a cultivator of succulent plants. This is all despite having been told by a fortune teller that he would be a diplomat. in 2015 Fei was a Resident Tutor at Henry Fok Pearl Jubilee Residential College in the University of Macau. (His biography will be updated as more information comes to light.)
Flying Islands Pocket Poet Publications
A River Sings Tales of the Village
Iris Fan Xing 樊星：詞語的南方
Iris Fan Xing is a poet and translator who is interested in language, place, and home. She recently returned to Perth from New York City and is currently working on translations for Giramondo. The following is from an interview with liminal magazine.
I grew up as an only child (like many people my age) in Mainland China. My family relocated to Guangzhou when I was in primary school, so I grew up under the huge influence of Cantonese culture (especially the pop culture from Hong Kong in the late 90s and early 2000s). The primary and secondary education I received were mandatory, rigid, and systematic in the political sense. My parents nurtured my interests in language and literature from when I was a child. I still remember having a braised pork bun and a bowl of plain congee and listening to cassettes of a children’s English learning program at home in the morning when I was in primary school. My earliest contact with poetry was through my mum reading classical Chinese poems to me. Although my parents believed in school education, they also gave me the freedom and liberty to find my own path as long as I passed my grades. I always did better in liberal arts than in maths and science at school. Their relaxed attitude encouraged me to enjoy spending more time in those subjects. My parents never said no to buying books for me. The best birthday present I’ve received was a set of The Complete Novels of Louis Cha from my dad when I was in high school.
In 2018, I moved to New York with my husband when he started his postgraduate studies. It took me quite a while to adjust to the life in this megacity (the biggest I’ve ever lived in so far), to the time difference, and to accept the fact of being so far away from both of our families and friends. But I’m always attracted to the ‘notion’ of New York and what it offers. It means the MET, Village Vanguard, Poetry Project at St. Mark’s, Anthology Film Archives, and the dwellings of many of my arts and culture icons. I’ll always remember the afternoon when we went to see Andrei Rublev at Walter Reade Theatre and saw Patti Smith sitting in a row by herself behind us.
Links: www.liminalmag.com/interviews/iris-fan-xing
Flying Islands Pocket Poet Publications
South of Words
Three books in one, South of Words makes the form of a round trip between various ports of call in China and Western Australia. The English and Chines texts meet in the title poem, at the centre of the book.
Yao Feng 姚風：在合唱中獨唱
Beijing-born poet Yao Feng (姚风) has lived in Macau for many years, and is currently a professor of Portuguese literature at the University of Macau. His poems have been published in many Chinese and Portuguese literary magazines, in both languages, and sometimes bilingually. He is a translator and founding editor of the magazine Chinese and Western Poetry, and was awarded the prestigious Rougang Poetry Prize in 2005.
Flying Islands Pocket Poet Publications
Choir Solo
trans Fei Chen, Kit Kelen
Great Wall Capricio and Other Poems
Translators: 客遠文 Kit Kelen, 管婷婷 Karen Kun, 房霞 Fang Xia
Toby Fitch
Toby Fitch is an Australian poet, editor, essayist and teacher. He is the current poetry editor of Overland and a sessional academic in creative writing at the University of Sydney. His six books of poetry include Where Only the Sky had Hung Before and Object Permanence: Selected Calligrammes, while his seventh, Sydney Spleen, is forthcoming with Giramondo Publishing in July 2021. He has lived in Sydney on unceded Gadigal land since the age of 3 but is shortly relocating to Newcastle and Awabakal land.
Links: tobyfitch.net
Flying Islands Pocket Poet Publications
Ill Lit Pop
In Australian National Library
LL LIT POP pirates lines from poetry, TV and pop music and performs them on some island in the digital swamplands. From ‘bad lip readings’ of canonical poems to melodramatic collages of Twin Peaks scripts and skewed mashups of pop lyrics, these anti-pop poems co-opt subjectivity and copyright, twisting the confected vagaries of pop culture into critical and playful new confections.