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Four Poems by Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨 translated into Chinese by Ma Yongbo 马永波
we are the weeping spring rain
spring—dew—sorrowful. The dark ebbing waves of dew
landing and crashing on the late winter shore has wrung
late tears from us. And yet still light has such brightness,
and spring light cannot understand her own weeping.
She breaks through holes in the clouds and the rain follows
as thin grey threads
13th March 2025
~
black, moon and then venus
venus brighter than all of us. Her light has climbed
and left us standing here beneath her
everything is dimmer; even the sliver of rocking silver
is dimmer. In darkness the wood has disappeared
but a twig twists across my forehead,
darkness has pointed fingers; refuses to be still
as venus holds us
4th January 2025
~
your face as a soft velvet moose
the trees as supple as our spring legs,
the grass singing as we emerge;
we quench our thirst. The trees look back at us,
radiant on our black stilts. Our velvet faces grace the
pool; water smiles back at us in a still silver bowl
2nd November 2024
~
her silver is our visitor
moonlight, soft on the house has stolen in beside us.
The still floor is suddenly ignited; he matches the squares of light-fall
through glass; and she is captured between chair legs.
The empty tabletop displays her as a squared and levelled
white beach; the silvered wood shimmering and shining like a white mirror.
She falls, and lingers; pulling us towards her
31st January 2025
—–
我们是哭泣的春雨 马永波 译
春天——露水——哀愁。消退的暗露之潮
拍打并碎裂在冬末海岸，拧出
我们迟来的泪水。光芒依旧这般明亮，
春光却无法理解自己的哭泣。
她将云层破出孔洞，雨水紧随其后
如纤细的灰线
2025年3月13日
~
黑暗、月亮，然后是金星 马永波 译
金星比我们所有人都明亮。她的光攀升而起，
将我们留在这里，伫立在她下方。
一切都暗淡下来；甚至摇晃的银月。
黑暗中，树林消失了，
却有一根小枝扭曲着划过我的前额，
黑暗有着尖尖的手指；拒绝静止，
当金星将我们拥抱。
2025 年 1 月 4 日
~
你的脸像柔软的天鹅绒麋鹿 马永波 译
树木像我们春天的腿一样柔软，
我们出现时，小草在歌唱；
我们平息了焦渴。树木回头看着我们，
在黑色的高跷上闪闪发光。
我们天鹅绒般的面庞使水塘荣耀
水在平静的银碗里向我们微笑
2024 年 11 月 2 日
~
她的银辉是我们的访客 马永波 译
月光轻轻地潜入屋内，依傍在我们身旁。
静止的地板骤然被点燃；透过玻璃
他投下光的方格；而她被困在椅子腿之间。
空荡的桌面将她展示为一片方正而平整的
白色海滩；镀银的木头微光闪烁，如一面白色的镜子。
她坠落，又逗留不去；牵引着我们向她靠近。
2025 年 1 月 31 日
~~~~
Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨 : Shortlisted 5 times for Bridport Poetry Prize 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024, twice longlisted for The Rialto Nature & Place 2018 and 2022, longlisted for the Ginkgo Prize 2019, longlisted for The National Poetry Competition 2022. 2nd prize Plaza Prose Poetry 2022-23. Shortlisted Plaza Prose Poetry 2023-24. English co-translator of Ma Yongbo.
Ma Yongbo 马永波 (b. 1964), has 7 published poetry collections. Ma Yongbo is listed among the 100 famous contemporary Chinese poets since the 1920s. He is the main poet-translator of Western postmodern poetry on the mainland, including Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams and Ashbery.
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Upon rereading, I can still feel the light and ethereal quality of Helen’s poetry, and I am delighted to have translated them into Chinese.
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Yes, they are beautiful in English and, I’m sure, in Chinese.
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Thank you for these poems of dark times lit by intervening shines of reflection and light; here’s an intermingling imagery that works. The English language originals are lyrically exquisite. We gaze with the poet, smiling and pondering.
I can only assume that the Chinese translations find similar delight for a reader who knows that language.
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Thanks, Jim. I’m told by native speakers that Yongbo’s translations from English are very moving.
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thank you Jim, for your lovely comments on my poetry, you will be pleased to know that Ma Yongbo is able to translate my lightness with ease, given his extraordinary capability. In fact, his translations flow very similarly in Chinese. Ma Yongbo has translated well over 150 of my poems into Chinese.
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Thanks for your reply to my post, and others here. It’s nice to have a poetic partnership like you do with Ma Yongbo, isn’t it? I’d bet both of you grow from the beauty and synergy of your co-creation.
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thank you again Jim, I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with Ma Yongbo
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Read these today before meditation and their beauty sat with me.
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thank you Barbara, for your lovely comments, Ma Yongbo is a very kind and thoughtful poet and academic scholar, whose generosity towards me has allowed me to develop even greater poetic confidence. I hope you are keeping well
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It’s a pleasure to work with you and Yongbo.
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Superb! So much light and space in each of these 4 lovely poems for which I’m so grateful.
Thankyou all three!
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thank you Sean, your comments are greatly appreciated, this poetic ‘lightness’ is a direct development of my own poetic style in response to the poetry of Chinese poet Ma Yongbo and the co-translation of his own poetry into English, which we have been working on for over a year now. Thank you to Ma Yongbo, for his translation of my poetry reveals both meaning and the emotion of my own poetry. His translations of my poetry are also published in China.
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In this unprecedented time when the American president is destroying our relationships with other nations, it is important that we maintain cross-cultural ties through the arts, including poetry. A Chinese poet translating the poems of a British poet is exactly what Americans should be paying attention to. Thank you, Helen and Yongbo!
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Michael, I can be a bit dense. But I have read Helen Pletts in perfect English. And Ma Yong Bo writes in both languages, no? I am not sure how to understand that a Chinese – English-speaker has to translate Helen Pletts’ poems? Confused in Lima…
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Sorry, Rose Mary. I guess I wasn’t clear. The poems were written originally by Helen, and Yongbo has translated them into Chinese. About a third of Vox Populi’s subscribers live outside the United States, so I try to reach out to people in more than one language when I can.
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Oh, duhhhh. Of course. I could have figured that one out but didn’t.
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no problem. the post is an experiment in cross-cultural poetry.
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Thank you very much Michael, from the outset of our bilingual project, you have been and continue to be a great support to Yongbo and I. We are both indebted to your thoughtfulness and your great encouragement.
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Thank you, Helen Pletts and Ma Yongbo for sharing this beautiful bilingual project–I love the spirit of it as much as I love the poems. Both poems and the process shine.
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Thank you Rosemerry, Ma Yongbo and I have a deep and meaningful understanding, and his poetry composed in support of me, particularly him responding to my grief concerning the loss of my mother, is delicately phrased to give me great comfort. His empathy and poetic sensibility are extraordinary, poetry is our first language.
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oh it shows, it shows …
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