Poet of the Month 067: XIAO AN

 

 

XIAO AN 
c 2002

YOU WANT TO EAT THE SUN

 

 

you want to eat the spring sun

you want to eat the sun's energy

such gluttony, to eat your face red

 

gold corona, silver corona

eat a sun today and one tomorrow

and live forever

TO LOST FRIENDS

 

 

love is such a bother

you look on helpless

grasp but can't hold

hold but it slips away

 

it must be springtime

everything is a 

mess of buds    dose of lust

ay ay ay ay

you can't explain on the phone

both poems from

 

 The Woman Who Plants Tobacco

  

(2002)

Translated by

  

DAVE HAYSOM

 

 

 

 

 

The following information appears on the website of The Poetry Translation Centre.  [It is re-posted here for information purposes only and, like the poems re-posted above, remains its author's exclusive copyright-protected intellectual property.]

 

Xiao An (born in 1964) is a poet of the fei-fei ('not/not' or 'neither/nor') school. For decades she combined a writing career with her work as a nurse in a Chengdu psychiatric hospital, earning the respect of the literary world through poems that fuse classical Chinese influences with the stark confessional tone of Sylvia Plath. Her 2002 volume The Woman Who Plants Tobacco collects her work from 1986 to 2000.

 

 

Use the link below to read another poem (in English) by Chinese poet XIAO AN:

 

 

 

https://www.poetrytranslation.org/poems/to-lost-friends

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might also enjoy:

 

 

 

Poet of the Month 053: TOETI HERARTY

 

 

 

 

Poet of the Month 045: NICULINA OPREA

 

 

 

 

Poet of the Month 011: FATMA BEN MAHMOUD