Yi Feng is a scholar, translator, poet, and associate professor and researcher at Northeastern University, China. Her English poems have been published in The Penn Review, Model Minority, and Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, and Venti：Air, Experience, and Aesthetics, etc.. Her Chinese poems have been published in Lotus (芙蓉) and Chinese Poetry Website. She has translated Chinese poets and American poets, including Shuguang Zhang, Susan Howe, Rae Armoutraut and Charles Bernstein, among other poets. Her translation of poems appeared in journals in China and the US, such as Poetry Monthly (诗歌 月刊) in 2019 , DoubleSpeak in 2020 and Anomaly (2020). She was awarded the Hunt Scholarship in 2016. She has won the Bronze Prize in an International Chinese Poetry Competition in 2017. She lives in Shenyang, China, P.R.
*in order to preserve the original format of these poems, text and background will vary from the default format of other pages on the Mule.
(1)
Go Into
First go into the forest
Look out of the cedar hall
the moonlight is bright
By the lakeside
people used to grow beans and keep bees
Daffodils quietly surrounded
the emerald cedars
All sounds were slight
Step on the road in the forest
countless times
Listen to the sounds of apes on both sides of the river
Outside the stone temple
toll the bell of deliberating words
At night dream a stone's dream
Take a lonely boat
But thee left the sandband in water
In the darkness a dark disc approached
there were at least two dark holes in it
The mouths of the protesters
are constantly moving
Nothing can defeat
the sound waves of the wanderer's song
Though lost in a vortex that cannot converge
the images automatically find definite lays of peaks
So the green color highlights the arc of the triangle
The painter is in the left corner
scattering the canvas in the unknown spaces
The river from the East takes me back to the snow village
The trudging hands lean on the staff of green jade
With a white stone in mouth
in the journey
all things beat rhythmically
with you by my side
In the solemn and slow melody
weak water of three thousand flow silently
carrying a small boat against the current
The honey badger in Yiwang Mountain
is still there
in search of the lost honey
The ellipse in the triangle is also to be born
Note:
"weak water of three thousand" originally refers to the shallow and turbulent river in ancient times. The river was too shallow to carry a boat. Later, the saying generally refers to the dangerous and distant river. In modern time, when the saying " weak water of three thousand, but I took only one gourd ladle to drink " is a well-known saying, metaphorically meaning a long and boundless river of love, which indicates the devotion and loyalty in love.
"Yiwang Mountain" is a mountain mentioned in The Classic of Mountains and Seas, which is said to be rich in gold and jade. The Classic of Mountains and Seas is a legendary book(475 B.C.-25 A.D.) in ancient China which integrates geography, mythology, folklore and natural history of ancient China.
(2)
The Wheel of Rice
I.
on the Lesser Cold season rice in the bowl
forget the discontent of the past year
rice grains drenched in vegetable juice
reunite with the past entangled with teeth
we flick out the broken rice with our fingertips
contend with the coming Greater Cold
rice’s muscles and bones are also sore
hungry Lovers in the soil
rice in the shell
the relief of the Hanged Man
the crow Queen pecks at
rice in cold spring field
Debris of rice left in the rain-soaked soil
The Wand of life grows
ears of rice slowly become plump
Hold up eight gold coins promised on Lesser Fullness of Grain
fertilized rice seed
is taken by androgynous Knights of the Holy Grail
Rice's gazes
at the blazing sun on the Summer Solstice
the fragrance of rice before bed
a Magician's lullaby
the sleepless grains of rice are circulating with the wind
keep the Devil undisturbed
rice strays into a brook
meet a High Priestess meditating by the water
broken rice in the ditch
quietly wait for the reply after the Lesser Snow.
II.
the warm fragrance of rice
the moon in the twelfth lunar month
the Hermit in the cold
the boiling Laba porridge
live in the rice candy cabin
the days have the shape of Stars
after eating the new rice in the northeast
the Fool takes the first step
the black soil embraces the ears of rice
two Lovers
chewing rice cakes and tasting snowflake crisp
we solute to the prosperous Tang Dynasty with folded hands
in the thickness of the rice noodles soup
lie the Golden Coins of the World
the soul of rice rustles
lotus root and sword spirit dance on the Grain Rain
under the sky in the northeast corner
drifts fine snowflake rice
rice grains like white jade
hairpin on the forelock of the imperial concubine
on the wall of pink beige
the ink wrote down several impromptu lines
make tea from old rice
people drink every drop of daily Temperance
hands clasped together while serving rice
continue our dialogue with our ancestors
a hut made of wheat ears
a judgement suspended lightly in the air
shaken in the wind
no need to mention the popcorn of good things
people in old cotton-padded jackets with ears of wheat in hands
push the Wheel of Fortune
On the eve of Lunar New Year make rice cakes
the Tower down and the first tablet of Sword up
Note：
The Lesser Cold refers to one of the 24 solar terms and so are the Greater Cold and the Summer Solstice etc. in the poem, which have guided farming in China in ancient and present days.
Lovers and the Hanged Man etc. in the poems refer to Tarot cards.
Laba porridge, also called Buddha porridge or the porridge of everyone, is a traditional food in China, usually eaten on Laba festival（December 8, lunar calendar）, made of a variety of grains, beans and dried fruits etc..
(3)
Impeccable Abstraction
I'm sitting in your chapel
listening to some divine language
Instantly something
whooshes into the soil of the conscious
You use a lightning knife
to cut the thunder curtain of the world theater
The gushing water drenches me
Chance smear the life of ink
upon your paper
to become parts of
some wholeness
Then it dissolves into wisps of air
molecules or particles
In the theater's hall it surges
invisible yet
palpable in their stirring
In the coliseum of China and the West
at ancient and modern times
Between different shapes and languages
metaphors lie concealed
Corners and centers hold
unbalanced surges
Amidst the interweaving of point and point
chance leaves the fate of ink stains
An impeccable perfection
Tick-tock taps against
the doodling brush of the unconscious
One insists on drawing a tree
A precision instrument of branches
Yet you insist on sketching a rhizome
A riot of unruly reproduction
When you scrawl with white chalk
upon the green blackboard
or when the ink rain drops
perhaps it is the time corroded by clouds
or the flicker of an estranged worm on seabed
A withered blade of grass once
Is that the existence of the unconscious
Multiple collisions of multiverses
Yet no reason suffices
to say just
what it is
