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Wang Jiaxin: Two Poems
Translated from the Chinese by John Balcom
Wild Chrysanthemums
I bought a large bouquet of chrysanthemums:
Purple, yellow, and pure white, I bought them quickly
As I came out of the supermarket yesterday evening
At a roadside flower stand
Before the two city inspectors got there
Today the flowers are in a vase
On my desk by the window
Decorating a poet’s autumn
But where did the village woman selling the flowers go?
And the flatbed cart she clung to for dear life
Refusing to let the inspectors confiscate it?
I sink into my sofa, the wild chrysanthemums
Wilting before they fully bloom
September 2020
Beijing
~
Testamentary Writing
Walking down the scorching streets of Moscow,
Osip turned to Anna and said:
“I’m ready to die.”
Rimbaud said that every poem is the last.
And a sequence of my poems, before appearing in print
Was pulled from publication.
That’s just as well. Thanks to fate I can still walk alone
On the outskirts of Beijing on such a beautiful autumn day.
Thanks to fate these words that are mortal
Need not become the last words for the future.
September 2021
~~
~~~~~
From At the Same Time, New and Selected Poems by Wang Jiaxin, translated by John Balcom (Arrowsmith, October 2025).
Wang Jiaxin is a Chinese poet, essayist, and translator and has published more than forty books. His work has had an important influence on Chinese poetry and has been translated into many languages.
John Balcom is Professor Emeritus at the Monterey Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He is an award-winning translator of poetry, fiction, memoir, philosophy, and children’s writing.
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Oh, these wonderful poems could not be more timely.
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I agree. We have taken our freedom for granted, and so we lost it
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Eroding by the minute, but I refuse despair
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That’s the right attitude, Donna!
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That’s just as well. Thanks to fate I can still walk alone
On the outskirts of Beijing on such a beautiful autumn day.
YES!
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Yeah, I love those lines too. Gentle acceptance in the face of oppression.
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The woman clinging to her cart, sinking into the sofa, the chrysanthemums dying, poems to read over and over.
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Thanks, Barb. I feel exactly the same as you do.
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These ARE beautiful and full too of the recognition of perilous political times worldwide. I love them. Thanks for finding and sharing his work.
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Thank you, Mary. I love these poems as well.
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Thanks to fate, Osip and Anna, sending us all on our ways.
So Great. Here we go.
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Yes, here we go.
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The fleeting. Especially in the second one. A way to circum-write the censors, something the Soviet-era poets were so good at. AND beautiful poems.
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Oh, yes.
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Such touching poems. Thank you for bringing them to our attention.
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Thanks, Stellasue. Aren’t they beautiful?
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I read them three times over. I could hear his voice in each poem, a gentle, loving voice.
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