Red Letter Poem #271

 Red Letter Poem #271

 

 

In Our Time


1



Men back from the front say:

In the trenches, it’s hard to find anyone

Who refuses to pray.



2



“The Truth exists within a cannon’s range”

This is a popular expression these days.

Poets without cannons, where is your truth?



3



In our time,

Some cannons have pretty flower names,

“carnation” for instance...

While some concentration camps are hidden

In a fairyland of angelic birch trees.



4



A country as “united” as a “pomegranate”

A country composed of dozens of marshes

A country driven by tanks and “The Noseless Slut”*

A country in the dragon seat

A country controlled by the sorcery of soul-stealers

A country hanging, swaying from a tree’s crooked neck

A country where prosthetics stock soars in value



5



He was released. The sack covering his head was removed.

He found himself in an open field in early autumn.

He could run to freedom with open arms.

What he didn’t know, is that he had been left in

The middle of a beautiful––

filled with drifting golden leaves––

Minefield.

                                                                      (April, 2023, New York)

 

 

                                        ––Wang Jiaxin

                                   

(translated by John Balcom)

 

 

*The Noseless Slut--death. (The word for death in Russian is of feminine

gender).  See the third part of Anna Akhmatova’s ‘Poem without a Hero.’

“The empire in ruins––rivers and mountains remain.” Du Fu’s opening line is one of the most famous in all of Chinese poetry, and hints at the somewhat conflicted allegiances poets had to maintain throughout Imperial history. With the exception of those strange souls who chose to opt out of society, living in seclusion, ancient poet/scholars were generally an official part of the governing apparatus. Their writing reflected the mood of the people, lionized the emperor’s glories, preserved histories and traditions, and cultivated the blessings of the heavens. But I suspect the temperament of individual poets was likely not so very different from that of our contemporaries: awed by the natural world, delighted by the love of family and friends, made solemn by an understanding of our mortal fragility––and these tendencies were amplified by Taoist principles and the amalgamation of Buddhism into the culture. Du Fu, thought by many to be China’s greatest poet, was so devastated by a ruinous civil war that tore through the Tang Dynasty, he eventually resigned his official post and returned to an impoverished private life––only partially comforted by his awareness that, while power-crazed leaders carved their bloody paths, nature’s realm would survive them all.



Wang Jiaxin is one of China’s finest contemporary poets and, in my reading of his work, a direct descendant of Du Fu and his blend of personal exploration and social observation. Working my way through At the Same Time: New and Selected Poems (about to be published by Arrowsmith Press, and skillfully carried over into English by John Balcom), it’s clear that he takes seriously both spheres of a poet’s responsibility: to sing out of the intensities of an individual’s experience, but to cry out loud at the brutality and injustice inflicted on people living everywhere and under every banner. In what is often called his most important poem, “Pasternak” (many of Jiaxin’s verses highlight the achievement and the suffering of fellow writers across the globe), he offers the lines: “The darkness and hunger in the people’s bellies, how/ Can I ignore this just to talk about myself?” Recently, the wanton suffering being inflicted on Ukraine (spurred by another power-mad emperor’s reckless aspirations) has become a frequent focus in his writing––and I selected “In Our Time” for today’s Red Letter because those antiphonal aspects of a poet’s self are so marvelously implicated. In the poem’s five sections, he challenges the capacity of our hearts and minds as we try to keep up with the verses.



Section one starts off with what has become a truism from the millennial history of war: the closeness of death makes every beleaguered individual seek out some God to whom he/she can appeal (or, in the popular adage from World War 2, ‘no atheists in a foxhole’). Even for those who have not witnessed a battlefield, the second stanza is deeply resonant: that “The Truth [with a capital-T] exists within a cannon’s range,” because the nearness of oblivion demands a radical perception of the moment. Then, to what absolute can we civilian poets turn––we who are blessed with abundance and do not wake and sleep within earshot of drones and missile strikes? Section three teases out intimations of life and death, heaven and hell, from what surrounds us every day. But then the poem intensifies, shifts direction with section four’s litany; perhaps you felt, as I did, that the poet’s anger seemed to be scarcely contained. I had little trouble imagining who those “soul-stealers” were, and upon whom their sorcery was being worked––our beloved homelands swinging from nooses we did little to prevent. The only industries prospering in such a world are the ones that trade in misery.



Born in Hubei Province, Wang Jiaxin was among the multitudes sent to the countryside for labor and reeducation. When the furor of the Cultural Revolution ended, he attended Wuhan University, and later worked as a teacher, editor, translator, and critic. He was a professor of literature at Renmin University in Beijing until his retirement in 2020. As author of over forty books, he’s won numerous domestic and international awards, and has had a deep influence on the poets of China and far beyond. He now spends most of each year in New York City. Reading his poems, I am reminded of why poets are often targeted by authoritarian regimes: because sometimes the truth of a dozen lines has the potential to upend how we’d been experiencing our days, to make us hunger for more. But the attempt at such honesty places one in personal danger––like the figure in the final section of today’s poem. A prisoner of some unnamed force, at last the sack is removed from his head, and he’s set free––only to discover he's in “The middle of a beautiful––filled with drifting golden leaves––Minefield.” Those intrusive em dashes feel like prison bars and yet, between them, perhaps only a poet would notice what vibrant beauty is everywhere available. That is the dilemma we are all being forced to navigate: beauty endures, but the minefield encloses it. What are we willing to do for one more afternoon of such possibility? This poet’s made his choice. (Is that cannon fire I’m hearing in the distance?) Perhaps, soon, we’ll be required to make ours.

 

 

   

 

 

The Red Letters

 

* If you would like to receive these poems every Friday in your own in-box – or would like to write in with comments or submissions – send correspondence to:

steven.arlingtonlaureate@gmail.com

 

 

* To learn more about the origins of the Red Letter Project, check out an essay I wrote for Arrowsmith Magazine:

https://www.arrowsmithpress.com/community-of-voices

 

and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

http://dougholder.blogspot.com

 

* For updates and announcements about Red Letter projects and poetry readings, please follow me on BlueSky

@stevenratiner.bsky.social

and on Twitter          

@StevenRatiner

 

And coming soon:

a new website to house all the Red Letter archives at StevenRatiner.com