About Sara Teasdale ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Teasdale

• A beautifully translated Chinese version of the poem "Like Barley Bending" became wildly popular in China in 2013 due to resurrecting debates and controversies surrounding a 19 year old thallium poisoning case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhu_Ling_(poisoning_victim) ). The young girl who made the translation, Zhu Ling, was poisoned when she was a sophomore at China’s prestigious Tsinghua University in 1994. She was permanently paralyzed and now clings to her life 19 years after the poisoning. The case was never solved and many Chinese believe that the main suspect was released without prosecution because of her family’s political connections. The translation was made while Zhu Ling was in high school. The content of the poem, to a great degree, matches her own tragic fate years later. Reading her translation today, one cannot help but feel that she was translating the poem for herself, reflecting the spirit of persistence and struggle that helped her go through all these difficult years after the poisoning. Many Chinese readers view the poem as a symbol of rising up together, no matter how weak or small each individual is, to bravely pursue justice and freedom under a big oppressive corrupted system.

Chinese translation by Zhu Ling

大麥歌

朱令譯

大麥俯身偃，海濱有低地，巨風動地來，放歌殊未已; 大麥俯身偃，既偃且複起，顛仆不能折，昂揚傷痛裏; 我生也柔弱，日夜逝如此，直把千古愁，化作臨風曲。

from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Teasdale