Fish Belly Poem
by Wang Jiaxin
Dr. Xia Kejun said today:
there is no poetry in hell, and heaven does not require it either.
Great literature can only come from purgatory.
Sure, I agree. Destroyed in hell,
like in a gulag or the Jiabiangou labor camp—
there’s a crowd of hungry ghosts and idiots there.
But are we in Dante’s purgatory now?
No, I am reminded of Jonah’s legend—
The prophet Jonah was thrown into the ocean,
and a large fish swallowed him.
We, too, are in the belly of a fish;
It is dirty, but it seems warmer than the ocean outside.
This fish belly has hurricanes, floods (sometimes,
it floods up to your chest, like when you are stuck in a subway car!).
There are eerie clouds as dense as fish scales.
Yet there is care in this fish belly, and they summon us
to get vaccinated in the middle of the night.
In the fish belly, we just can’t find
a table on which to write our great literature.
Does literature matter? We just want to live.
Jonah’s eyes were wide open, and he prayed
in the fish belly for three days and three nights.
And we don’t know
who the master of this big fish is.
We don’t know if we can make it to the very end
or if we will be spit out by this giant fish.
鱼腹之诗
夏可君博士今天说：
地狱里无诗。天堂状态也不需要文学。
伟大的文学只能来自于炼狱。
对此我深以为然。在地狱里只能被吞噬，
就像古拉格群岛或夹边沟里
那些饿鬼或白痴般的人群。
但我们现在是在但丁的炼狱里吗？
不，我想起了约拿的传说——
先知约拿被抛在海中，一条大鱼吞没了他。
我们也在这个鱼腹里。
它肮脏，但似乎比外面的海水温暖。
这个鱼腹里有飓风、洪水（有时它还会
像在地铁车厢里那样漫上胸口！）
有鱼鳞一样密布的诡异的云。
鱼腹里还有关怀，半夜里通知我们打疫苗。
只是在鱼腹里我们找不到一张桌子
来书写我们伟大的文学。
文学重要吗？我们只是要活。
约拿眼睛圆睁，在鱼腹中祈祷了三天三夜，
而我们却不知道这条大鱼的主人是谁，
更不知道在最后我们能不能
被这条大鱼张口吐出。
Smelting Spring*
by Wang Yuyang (1634-1711)
The Red Bridge flies across the water—
in a single flow, the railing’s nine red curves.
Noon: a painted boat passes under the bridge:
the clothes’ fragrance, people’s shadows, fleeting, fleeting.
*original unavailable
Wang Yuyang (1634-1711) was a leading poet in the early Qing dynasty and frequently chose the Red Bridge in Yangzhou as the setting for literary gatherings.
