Poems from Taiwan
1. Poems by Lee Kuei-shien
Lee Kuei-shien 李魁賢 (b. 1937) has retired from the chairman of National Culture and Arts Foundation. At present he is the Vice President of Movimiento Poetas del Mundo. His works include “Collected Poems” in six volumes, “Collected Essays” in ten volumes, “Translated Poems” in eight volumes, ”Anthology of European Poetry” in 25 volumes, ”Elite Poetry Series” in 30 volumes etc. His book “The Hour of Twilight” has been translated into English, Mongol, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, French, Korean, Bengali, Albanian, Turkish, Macedonian and Serbian languages.
Taiwan Island 島嶼台灣
You emerge as an island
from the waves of white satin
The dense forest of black hair
drifts with longing nostalgia
The beach of soft white sands
is imprinted with numerous kisses of shells
Taking a birds-eye view from the sky
the beauty of your texture is so attractive
that I am landing onto your body thirstily
You are a mermaid
in the Pacific Ocean
the landmark of my eternal home country
My Taiwan, My Hope 我的台灣 我的希望
I hear your sound from the morning birds singing.
I feel your passion from the noon sunshine.
I watch your magnificence from sunset glow.
Oh, Taiwan, my home, my love.
The coasts have your curve.
The waves have your surge.
The clouds have your elegance.
The flowers have your gesture.
The leaves have your evergreen.
The woods have your burliness.
The bedrocks have your sturdiness.
The mountains have your loftiness.
The streams have your meander.
The rocks have your grandeur.
The roads have your roughness.
Oh, Taiwan, my land, my dream.
In your lung there is my breath.
In your history there is my life.
In your being there is my consciousness.
Oh, Taiwan, my country, my hope.
Shaheed Minar* 孟加拉紀念碑
In front of the Martyr Monument
the youths sing in praise of peace and
the children paint their vision in competition.
Our tour guide Khan surprises to find
the design of 228 badge on my bonnet,**
the sad memorable happenings in different states.
Half century after the liberation of Bangladesh
the butcher committed crime in murdering Moslems***
is eventually sentenced to death.
The belated justice represents
a substantial justice in Bangladesh.
In my home country Taiwan
how to write the justice still unknown.
On Martyr Monument Square
sun shines brilliantly
distributed all over bright earth
over the smiling faces of Bengali people.
*The Shaheed Minar (Martyr Monument) is a national monument in
Dhaka, established to commemorate those killed by then East
Pakistan government, in the event of Bengali Language Movement
demonstrations of 1952.
**228 Incident, also known as February 28 Massacre, was an anti-
government uprising in Taiwan, happened on Feb. 28, 1947.
**On 28 February 2013, the tribunal sentenced Delwar Hossain
Sayeedi to death by hanging for two charges among the eight
committed during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971.
2. Poems by Li Yu-fang
LI Yu-fang 利玉芳 (b.1952) won a number of honors including the Wu Zuo-lieu literary prize in 1986, Chen Hsiu-shi poetry Award in 1993, Rong-hou Taiwanese Poet Prize in 2016 and Hakka Achievement prize in 2017 . Her publications of poetry include “The Taste of Living”, “Sunflower”, “The Morning to drink Roselle Tea”, “Collected poems by Li Yu-fang in Taiwanese Poets Series” and “Lantern Flower”, as well as a Chinese-English-Japanese trilingual “Cat”. She participated 2014 International poetry meeting in Chile, 2016 and 2017 Formosa International Poetry Festival in Tamsui, Taiwan, and 2017 Capulí Vallejo y Su Tierra in Peru.
The Voyage of Island 島嶼的航行
1﹒
The ship left Taiwan in favorable wind
You therefore entered one colony island
Your identity was recognized immediately
Rendered you a free movement
In the future
Living in this established town
The sovereignty still attributed to it.
You grouped the sea birds
Did not throw the net
Never worry about reaping the fish
2．
Against the wind, the ship continued to accomplish its voyage
Suddenly encounter the undercurrent
The ship vibrated heavily and made you dizzy at times
if it were not the sunset
Towing the glamour long tail of golden pheasant
To split the heaven and sea
The fully disputed colors and boundaries
You assumed you saw a heat and red fire tong in stove
Take out the roasted sweet potato
The Dream is Still Fresh- Meet Mackay 夢境猶新–遇見馬偕
Stumbled the footsteps, I am late
Slanting the body and struggle forward
Climb to the slope of Mackay Street
Hurry up for Mackay
The frangipani is blooming in the old church
The rain falls on my head while in the lane of Mackay
The bronze statue of Mackay guards the street
Look far ahead of Tamsui
Whom you are waiting for?
It reminds me of a dream long ago
You bore a wood gun, led the young men of Pin Pu
Leaving Tamsui for a jungle
Your helmet was intertwined by Chinese Fevervine
When you discovered Yi Lang
You glorified the Lord loudly: you found Kavalan
You gave the poor hunting meat
Bestow the wild and steep hill paraffin
Your eye sight is like fish swimming in Tamsui
You wiped the hesitated mind of the women
Educate them to read, to know dignity and fight for woman’s right
The wandering footsteps visited Aletheia Missionary Hall
To meet Dr. Mackay
Your figure has become the chapter of history
The helmet you wore are still distributing the fragrance of vine
My dream is still fresh
3. Poems by Hsieh, Pi-Hsiu
Hsieh Pi-hsiu 謝碧修 (b.1952) graduated from Department of Social Sciences, National Air University and now lives in Kaohsiung. After retirement from the bank in 2006, she has been engaging in Non-Profit Organization social service work so far. She won Landscape Poetry Prize in 1978 and “Light in Darkness” Poetry Prize for Literature in 2003. At present, she is a member of Li (Bamboo Hat) poetry Society and Taiwan Modern Poetry Association. Her books include “Collected poems of Hsieh Pi-hsiu” (2007) and “The Sparks in the Life” (2016)
Matters of the Lily’s Heart 百合心事
I am a Taiwanese lily
Named ‘Formosa’
March
Is my blooming season
I love freedom
I walk around Taiwan welcoming spring
On the harsh high mountains
In the low-lying swamps
More ebullient personality
Can be tempered
Soft and silent me
In the white little atrium of the heart
With only small yearnings
Once I blossom
There be fresh air
There be cool and clean streamwater
There be bright and brilliant sunshine
Translated by Jand Deasy
Birds and Water 鳥與水
To a group of amputees and visually impaired friends
Water to the birds
Just as dancing to me
We come from different directions
solely fond of this watery area
living in the green field among dark gray
The cleanness of water soothes me
and the intense vibration of water challenges me
In this sky space
I extend my wings
due to nourishing with water
flying more beautiful and powerful
Life
Dancing to me
Just as the water to the birds
Translated by Jand Deasy
Life of Bamboo Chair 竹椅人生
Please be seated
Let’s brew up a pot of tea
And listen to me carefully
The texture of chair weaves one’s life
I have good DNA
Endurance, toughness
Can carry the various weights
Enter a luxury house
Experience the joy when married
Turn into a humble house
Taste the sweetness and bitterness of life
At the temple yard of the countryside
To run through the minds of grand parents
In the park of urban city
To take the bitterness of the tramp
I am tight-lipped
And was finally attached as a picture
When you look quietly at the painting
You still can recall silently
Your own story
Translated by Catherine Yen
4. Poems by Tsai Jung-yung
Tsai Jung-yung 蔡榮勇 (b. 1955) is currently an editing member of Li Poetry Society, a director in Taiwan Modern Poets’Association, a director and editing member of the children’s literature magazine “Serissa Fetida”, and a member of PPDM. He participated International Poetry Festivals held respectively in Mongolia, Cuba and Chile.
Taiwan Is Not a Noun 台灣不是名詞
Taiwan is not a noun
For you to call over
And him to beckon back
Taiwan is my mother
Taiwan is a verb
You diligently work
He sincerely strives
Taiwan is my mother
Taiwan is not an adjective
You say Republic of China
He says Taiwan
Taiwan is my mother
Taiwan is a sentence
One which you write for a lifetime
He needs to be written with a grateful heart
Taiwan is my mother
(Translated by Jane Deasy)
Spring’s Footsteps 春天的腳步
From Taoyuan Airport in Taiwan
In a Delta plane to Chile
In search of poets footprints
Along the rivers of each country’s poets
Strolling along the rivers
Picking up along the way, accidently
Lost verses
Consoled
The heart
From where no new buds sprouted in a while
Standing Up, Taiwan Wakes Up 起來，台灣醒了
The unbent author Yang Kuei
woke up like a giant tree
of thousand years in high mountain
in turn, aroused the roots of lily
buried under the earth
sprouting up green leaves
also wakened
the strawberry tribe in wildness
The young people of wild strawberry
sat around the civil square
inheriting the spirit of the writer Lai Ho and others
to spark the souls of Taiwanese
They learnt after the eyes of the sculptor Huang Tu-suei
to observe the topography of Taiwan
The blood stream of Taiwanese history in four hundred years
would not be allowed to be desecrated
Translated by Lee Kuei-shien
5. Poems by Lee Chang-hsien
Lee Chang-hsien 李昌憲 (b. 1954) is from Tainan and is currently living in Kaohsiung City.He is currently the editor-in-chief of Li Poetry Journal.
In June 1981, he published his first collection of poetry, Poems of the Processing Zone, and in 1982 he won the Li Poetry Award. Other poetry collections published include Ecology Collection (1993), On the Production Line (1996), Looking Up at the Starry Skies (2005), From Youth to Grey Hair (2005), Portraits of Taiwanese Poets-The Chang-hsien Li Poetry Anthology (2007), Selected Works of a Taiwanese Poet- The Chang-hsien Li Collection (2010), A Vision of Beauty- Slow Travel in Greater Kaohsiung Poetry and Photography Collection (2014), Poetics of Kaohsiung 1977-2015 (2016).Love River(Chinese-English Editon)(2018)
Journey Through Taiwanese Tea Mountains 台灣茶山行旅
A journey through Taiwanese tea mountains
Tea is in the heart
People are in the painting
Pay a visit to the tea-making expert
Taste the fragrance of the tea, know the sun and the moon
The essence, all in a cup of tea
My nose is greeted by the fragrance of tea
An abundant aroma of tea
Smoothly guiding the internal organs
Easing the twelve meridians
Taiwanese tea is a sweet spring
Warming Taiwanese hearts
Enriching Taiwanese lives
Love River 愛河
Love River
We have a river in our hearts
Written full of love and romance
Love River
Love River’s water slowly flows
Into the depths of time
Love River
Flows into the blood vessels to become
The inner soul's strength
Love River
Poetry and beauty
Fill up the journey of life
South Asian Tsunami 南亞海嘯
The pent-up energy of the earth’s crust
Exploded in an instant from the bottom of the sea
The surging, turbulent giant waves
A devastating raid
Human life was devoured
Dragged into the sea to drift by the current
The land is corpse-strewn
A tragic vision in our mortal world
Scenes of devastation are everywhere after the tsunami
Images of wretched horror are spread
Shocking the heart of the entire world
Leaving behind the little children with no kin to turn to
Standing at the scene of the disaster
Tears have already been cried dry
Still, heads are raised towards the sky
To helplessly cry and shout
(Translated by Jane Deasy)
- Poems by Lin Lu林鷺
Lin Hsueh-mei 林雪梅 (alias Lin Lu林鷺, b.1955) concurrently serves at the standing committee of the Li Poetry Society, the editorial board of the Li Poetry Magazine, and the jury of annual Taiwan Modern Poetry Collection. She is also a member of Movimiento Poetas del Mundo (PPdM).
Lin Lu has three Mandarin poetry collections, “Star Chrysanthemum” (2004), “Lost in Time” (2016), and “For What to Travel” (2017). She also published a Mandarin-English poetry collection, “Forgetting Autumn” (2017).
No Thoughtless Handshaking with a Poet 不要隨便跟詩人握手
Is a poet's hand pure?
Is a poet's hand soft?
Is a poet's hand romantic?
Land
People
Passion
Tears
Immaculate truth
All are metaphors written by poets
Don't shake with a poet with your thoughtless hands
In a distance I see a weathercock
Ironically
The weathercock is a poet's hand
pointing in the same direction
that the wind is blowing
Rose 玫瑰
She was a rose
A rose who was in her early puberty with expectations
She was a rose
A rose who was fondled and drawn in her illusions
She was a rose
A rose who blossomed in the breath and kisses
She was a rose
A rose who had forgotten her whole body thorns
However
She is a withering rose
A rose
who did live her whole life and legend with soundless
Lost in Time 遺忘吧
Let it lost in time
When I finally become
A requiem
Let the notes of life
lost in time
Like sands through the hourglass
So are the days of our lives
There people can never conquer the time
But only time can conquer the people
Let everything lost in time
Greatness
Insignificance
Are all leaves on the trees of life
When the season comes
Silently
Leaves are lost in time
So
Let it lost
Let it lost in time
( Translated by Faustina Huang)
7. Poems by Chen Ming-keh
Ming-Keh Chen 陳明克 ( b. 1956 in Taiwan). He received a PhD in physics from
Nat’l Tsing Hua University in 1986. In 1987, he became a member of Li poetry
society. He is now a member of editorial broad of Li poetry. His publication includes ten collected poems, and two collected short stories. He was awarded six prizes of literature in Taiwan. He explored the meaning of life. Metaphors are frequently expressed in his poems.
A Flower 一朵花
Just a flower, who care?
A flower fades
Another flower will be in blossom
Dewdrop 露珠
A dewdrop absent-mindedly fell down
Along the curved twigs
It would drop and disappear
At the thin end
a cherry blossom fully bloomed
Dragonfly 蜻蜓
A dragonfly stays at
the rain wash which turns upwards
It silently waits
for regarding the windshield as a basin?
Unexpectedly, I am the dragonfly
The Ships in Dock 船塢裡的船
Are they looking at the sea?
What do they think?
They are nothing originally
The cranes sling the steel girders and sheets
Which are then welded and cut by the raging fire
At the moment they are linked up to be ships
they feel the sea is calling
I finally understand
Why I, made of flesh and blood,
feel the immortal calling
Can it be a little bit clearer ?
as the ships hear the sea
Pass Through the Silk Cotton Trees 行經木棉樹
I went out from the subway station in the crowds
Jostling pedestrians, I walked under the silk cotton trees
I heard creak
What birds were in
the full bloomed kapok flowers?
They were jumping, the branches
and flowers were shaking lightly
Always a few birds jumped to the tree-top
Looking around and calling gently
Guarded the hawk which was far wheeling
How happy the birds
No enemies hid themselves among the companions
A kapok flower fell around my feet heavily
Did the birds gave it to me?
Could I grow wings too?
8. Poems by Chen Hsiu-chen 陳秀珍
Chen Hsiu-chen 陳秀珍has publications including essay “A Diary About My Son, 2009”, poetry “String Echo in Forest, 2010”, ”Mask. 2018”and “Uncertain Landscape, 2017”, Mandarin-English-Spanish trilingual “Promise, 2017 ”, as well as “Tamsui Poetry, 2018”. Her poems have been selected into Mandarin-English-Spanish trilingual anthologies “Poetry Road Between Two-Hemispheres” and “Voices from Taiwan”, as well as Spanish “Opus Testimoni” and Italian “Dialoghi”.
Under the Sky of Bangladesh 在孟加拉的天空下
Under the sky of Bangladesh,
under the warm sunshine,
among the flower fragrance in Bangladesh Red Fort
my face always presents
to you a smile
without any make-up forever.
a smile like the sky,
a smile like the warm sunshine,
a smile like the red flower.
I smile as this when I think of you,
I smile as this when I dream of you,
I smile as this when I think of your thinking of me,
I smile as this when I dream of your dreaming of me,
during the fluctuation of thought,
among the sounds of poetry recital,
on the road in the illusory spring time.
（Translated by Lee Kuei-shien）
Permanent Address 永久地址
I have asked your address from enormous green!
I have asked your address from white snow!
I have asked your address from the waterfall!
Nobody knows your address!
—“Full Moon Night ” by Aminur Rahman
During my wandering,
I looked for a permanent address.
May have an invariable address
for a fragrance of flower？
May have a permanent watershed
for a drop of river stream？
May have an eternal sky
for a floating cloud？
After the endless wandering,
each drop of tear
moistens the homeland under feet,
the permanent address is eventually found.
Whether the love in wandering
needs to look for a permanent address？
（Translated by Lee Kuei-shien）
The Smile of Mona Lisa 蒙娜麗莎的微笑
The glow of your smiling lips emits sadness;
Reasons of sadness not known. Why in your eyes
Do you store chocked emotions off the soul?
—“Mona Lisa” by Jahidul Huq
In Musée du Louvre, you has been
sustaining consistently an elegant posture,
being appreciated around with crowds,
observed in detail by means of magnifier,
discussed and copied in painting,
your worldwide known smile still persists.
This smile has been well guarded
so smiling for hundreds of years.
What secret of non-disclosure is hidden
behind the smile of Mona Lisa？
Perhaps, da Vinci has given a hint,
who knows the secret codes.
Me smile too.
My plain smile,
I desire it to be well guarded,
reveals no sense of mysterious beauty.
I love mystery more than smile
but the sense of mystery is frequently
bloomed within the flower of smile.
（Translated by Lee Kuei-shien）
9. Poems by Yang Chi-chu
Yang Chi-chu 楊淇竹(b. 1981), a doctoral student in Comparative Literature at Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan, specialized in East Asian Literature in the period of 1930s. She published her master thesis “Interdisciplinary Adaptation: A Study of the Narrative and TV series of the Trilogy of Wintry Night” in 2010, as well as poetry books “Living Among Cities” in 2016 and “In the season of Summer Lotus Blossom” in 2017. She participated 2014 “Tras las Huellas del Poeta” Internatinal poetry meeting in Chile, 2016 Formosa International Poetry Festival in Tamsui, Taiwan, and 2017 Capulí Vallejo y Su Tierra in Peru.
As the Taiwan-island-shaped pineapple cake is savored,
Packaged with food quality assurance,
Stuffed with Guanmiao’s local pineapple,
Sour ‘n sweet,
That old-time wax-gourd filling has been forgotten.
Decades ago in the countryside
Teeming with big wax gourds,
Neighbors shared pineapple cake,
Piling up kindness piece by piece,
And the leftover cake went to
The pastry chef, to be
Fully cooked and fried--
A tradition of cherishing food.
The insipid wax-gourd filling--
A test of the chef’s ingenuity--
Blended with various aromas,
Surprisingly played up to
The yearning of sweet desert.
Kneaded into dough in pieces, the pineapple cake
Wafted a hometown sentiment through the air.
Today the island-shaped pineapple cake
Goes for local pineapple filling instead,
Cased with the island’s splendors,
Along with a tropical flavor, sour ‘n sweet,
Spreading across shopping malls:
The genuine Guanmiao pineapple cake
Tourists
Know nothing but Taiwan in their mouths.
Tamsui Night Scene 淡水夜景
At the bar in a small café
The stranger looks up at the night sky
Twinkling stars
Falling into the cappuccino coffee, melting
An autumn breeze drifting along
The riverside Tamsui has the hustle and bustle
Blown off
Night, dropping into the coffee cup
From the espresso machine
One drip after another
Comforts
Sleepless strangers
Fort San Domingo 紅毛城
The rise and fall of the nations
And their checkered past
All remain
Jockeying for the marine power
In the red-brick house
The owner’s language
Smelled of something
RING-RING-RING...
Service ring
Spanish, Dutch, English
Transmitting the wisdom of the butlers
Transmitting the influence of the time
In the Empire’s hand
Who, would let go of it
（Translated by WANG Ching-lu 王清祿）
