因為版主說交流比直流好俺就貼一首有交流的

Birth of an ocean

Time
Gracefully
Erases every color.
Too swift and efficient
For an artist to repaint.

Time
Nimbly
Unties every knot.
Too determined and precise
For a sailor to retie.

Time
Patiently
Melts every snowflake.
Too warm and effective
For a heart to preserve.

Time
Eventually
Fuses every piece of memory
Into a peaceful ocean.
A sail no longer needs navigation.

 

xx - This has a good flow.  Good word choices and form.  With excellent images, this poem, and I like the statement idea first and then the image, different and original.  I believe, by just cutting out the And for tightening your strong emotional poem will read better at the end. Thank you.  (a sail no longer needs navigation) I like it without the And.  OK?

Good poem3 years ago   x

xx - I just love this, thanks again!3 years ago   x

xx - Thank you for your kind comments and suggestions. English is my second language. My native is Chinese. I am learning to write poems in English. I am probably writing Chinese poems, although in English . 3 years ago   x  edit

xx - What constitutes a Chinese Poem?  How is it different from a poem writtten iin another languarge or understanding?  Just curious.  Is it like learning to speak another language and having to think in that language?  Jon3 years ago   x

xx - thanks for your message, i guess grammar, word order, culture, ..... i translated a Chinese poem into English, nearly word to word, you may see something I don't

To Lin Zhao

Liu Xia

I gazed at your eyes,
as if in a moment of eternity.
I gently took the cotton ball out of your mouth，
When your lips soft，
your tomb empty，
Yet your blood burned my extended hands.

Such cold and cruel ending of life,
depleted my sense of sorrow,
while I sit alone in the shiny sun.
Any form of tomb is
too flimsy to match
your love for freedom.

On every reunion with the dead,
we can’t bring back your soul,
despite a river of floating lanterns.
You calmly dwell on
the wandering boat in Metamorphosis,
and observe the same old absurd world.

Those anniversary celebrations at your alma mater
drive you into a loud scornful laughter.
Toast! Toast! Toast!
Blood, it is!
-Your voice from the dark. 3 years ago   x  edit

xx - Do you have any idea how lovely this poem is just as it is written here? I believe that you should just translate your poems into English from Chinese exactly as you have written them. The basic idea of poetry is not to get every understanding over to the reader but to evoke an emotion or emotions in them that they can relate to from their own life experiences.  This is exactly what you have done here.  Just keep your tranlations in the present tense as though you were speaking them at present and you will be fine.  And above all, remember that the emotion achieved in a poem is paramount over understanding. What is not said in a poem is as important and sometimes more so than understandiing every passage or word choice.  OK?  Please give feedback to this comment but only after you have absorbed what I have stated here. Thanks and congrats on a fine poem.  You new friend in poetry, Jon3 years ago   x

xx - Forgot, my name is xx, really a wonderful experience talking to you about poetry.3 years ago   x  edit

xx - May I ask, where do you live in the states? We are in the desert region of California called Palm Springs.  Glad to make your aquantiance and so happy to be exchanging our poems and ideas.  Please send me more of your works if you wish and yes, your translations idea is a good one to keep your home tradition and language strong.  Jon3 years ago   x

Vibrato - I live xx. I also feel so great that I can exchange ideas with you who has passion and insight for poetry. I wrote a short poem about reflection quite a while ago, about something I vaguely felt at the moment. 

xx

Harp and her reflection

I erect a harp by the mirror lake.
In the mirror I gaze at her grace,
And beauty that ain’t empty or fake.
When autumn breeze wrinkles her face,
I hear fallen leaves pluck her string. 
And see tender green decorate her reflection.
Harp sings a song of mesmerizing spring,
Till I tie autumn with affection. 3 years ago   x  edit

xx - This poem tells me (a little too much telling) how far you have come since writing this, the same clear images yet lacking your depth as you write now.  'ain't' seems out of place here; breaks the sincerity of the emotion somehow.  Adjectives like 'tender' seem just a bit too much here.   In your later poems I feel you have let the theme run with with a natural flow.  I often go back to earlier works and with my new found techniques and understandings of nuance, then change them a bit. Thanks Bin, I really love working with you and your ideas and thoughts in poetry.  J3 years ago   x

xx - Thank you, Jon! Poetry is my hobby. I write poems with my limited understanding of poems. very often, I write with an instinct, like "ain't", just like its sound at the moment. "tender" was also a quick thought at the moment, but now, as you pointed out, cliche and weak. I hope I have grown in my writing through intentional and unintentional learning. I really appreciate your advice and insight.

What is "depth" in poetry? And in general, how to achieve "depth" in poetry? I am afraid I may randomly have it in my poems. Thanks.3 years ago   x  edit

xx - Depth felt in a poem is a true understand of the subject in a poem; not a vague mention of a feeling or just a hint at it. Depth comes to the realization of the reader of a poem when he or she becomes swept up the it's essence. Thanks for asking. It is delightful for me to have a fellow poet I can relate to on a deeper level. Ha, ha, no pun intended!3 years ago   x

xx - Thanks. That is really something I never thought of. I write poems mainly to release my thoughts, haven't thought about how to evoke readers using my words. I need time to digest your words. Thanks Jon!3 years ago   x  edit

xx - Ok and yes, verbs are strong.3 years ago   x

xx - Thank you! First and foremost, i want to clarify I didn't write the poem, I only translated it. It was written by Chinese poet, Xia Liu. She wrote this poem in memory of Zhao Lin who was wrongfully sentenced to death and executed during the dark 1960s in China. Unfortunately her husband, Xiaobo Liu, also a wrongfully sentenced prisoner, died of liver cancer on July 13th 2017. Mr. Liu was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. I wrote a poem in English in memory of his death.

Silent on July 13

In a silent movie,
I hear tears dripping,
And hearts whispering.
In a silenced world,
I hear fires burning,
And bells chiming.
To whom bells toll?
An end or a beginning?

I really enjoy reading your messages. I can feel your passion for poetry. I also appreciate your insight on poetry. I started reading and writing poems to deal with mid life crisis. I am a scientist by trade. I spend most of my time writing manuscripts and grant proposals. Poetry is my relief. I have lived in the US for nearly 20 years. I have this dilemma. I feel I become rusty on Chinese and not fully competent in English. Maybe translation is a good use of my dilemma, or cure it. I like your comment "the emotion achieved in a poem is paramount over understanding". That's how I feel when I like a poem, it evokes something in me, so hazy that I can't put down that feeling in words. I tend to pay more attention to forms, word choice, and rhyme. Maybe I am influenced by the traditional Chinese poems that are as rigid in formats as Sonnet. The contemporary Chinese poems are all free style.

Is present tense stronger than past tense in poems in general? Chinese doesn't have tense in its grammar,  all revealed by the context. 3 years ago   x  edit

xx - Yes dear sir, present is stronger and a poet can relate a past feeling within a present poem if it is done coming from the present. Here is an example in one of my recent poems. If I may:

 

Within These Garden Walls

I saw in the pond’s reflection
an old self
one with no age
recognized in these leafed walls
(walls I think I had once known
but am not sure)
myself beside self
like the air has no air
floating as it does just here and here
like earth
no top no bottom
turns here
same this clear spring morning
mist playing ‘peek round the corner’
just above the lawns
meadows that are the yellow-green of now
meandering through these gnarled live-oaks
mossed with their own time
along the path    a slope to somewhere
the jays and sparrows feel with me here
as one into ourselves
we come and we go
here

xx
7/2017

I am not sure you can see the picture I have imcluded with this poem.  In the parenthesis is the reference to a pst emotion or feeling.  Jon3 years ago   x

Vibrato - Thanks Jon! That is a beautiful poem! I love reflection too. I can relate your poem to some ideas in Zen. mist, air, self.

xx

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