One
“A Bilingual Edition Of Poetry Out Of
Communist China By Huang Xiang”
Huang Xiang
Translated by Andrew G. Emerson
The Edwin Mellen Press
Box 450 Lewiston, N.Y. 2004
406 Pp. $129.95
review by Paul Catafago
I recently got an email from Zhang Ling (to describe her only as the wife of Huang Xiang,
the poet and author of this book, is an understatement. She is so much more, as well as
an author in her own right). She said that Huang Xiang, her husband of nineteen years, a
man she has supported in the most trying of times, especially while he was imprisoned
in their native China, had been accepted into the International Parliament of Writers’
(www.autodafe.org) cities of asylum program. The program sponsors persecuted writers
all over the world to reside in a chosen city, “a city of asylum”. Beginning in October, wrote
Ling, she and Xiang will live in Pittsburgh for two years, hosted by the IPW.
The fact that they were accepted in this program seven years after leaving China speaks
volumes about what they endured there as writers of conscious. Indeed both suffered
much for their art.
The thing about clichés is that they are clichés, often-repeated terms, because they have
stood the test of time, and in a way still resonate. In artistic circles, you often hear, “He
suffered for his art”. And that could be true, but often the definition of suffering concerning
American artists, American poets is more an internal suffering, more psychic than
physical.
But when reviewing this book, this opus, over 400 pages of English translations of the
poetry of Huang Xiang, to say that the poet suffered for his art would be an
understatement. As a poet, Xiang still struggles with the internal darkness we all do,
negotiates the world elegantly that way, as Lorca did, as June Jordan did, as Neruda did,
as Dickinson did. But unlike many poets, Xiang actually had bones broken just because
he was a poet.
As one of the organizers of the Democracy Wall Movement (where he led other poets to
paste their poems celebrating freedom of expression on a wall in Beijing) during the
Cultural Revolution, Xiang was imprisoned over twelve years in China. Two times, he
was put on death row. To say that the poet suffered for his art is an understatement.
Indeed.
A couple of months ago, I heard a young American woman poet, whose work had some
potential and insight, say that Pablo Neruda was a hack. She saw him as someone who
“only wrote lists”, someone who represented patriarchy. I have repeated this story to
many older poets and we have come to understand the episode as an illustration that a
lot of younger poets really don’t get it. They have no appreciation of the ones who have
come before them, who suffered just so the next generation could put pen to paper and
share their work.
Huang Xiang, 63, is one of those who has come before us, come all the way from China
with his gift. This collection, spanning poetry written from 1960 to 2003, is the first book of
Xiang’s poetry published in English. Huang Xiang has had fifteen books published in his
native Chinese and one in Japanese.
But in reviewing this book, it would be an injustice just to review the text, the book alone,
without touching on the lives of those who created it.
As the first English translations of the work of a poet who could very well win the Nobel
Prize in Literature, this book represents an introduction of Huang Xiang to English
readers, especially Americans. The fact that the book is so expensive is an absurdity in
that Huang Xiang was persecuted in China because he was a populist poet who gave
his poems away for free. It also illustrates the shortsightedness of the American
publishing world, apart from Mellen Press (who has marketed this book as a college text
for Asian studies) that it has failed to recognize both Huang Xiang’s talent and his
importance as a poet.
For the last several years, Bei Dao (who lives in California) has gained some popularity
in America as a “dissident Chinese” poet. This speaks less to Bei Dao’s talent than it
does his ability in English (much better than Huang Xiang) and his acumen in playing the
game in literary America. But Chinese literature scholars who have studied both Huang
Xiang’s and Bei Dao’s work, agree that Xiang is a much more accomplished poet.
Again, the importance of this book is not just in the text, but also in the fact that it will allow
more people to acquaint themselves with the work and life of an extraordinary poet.
This book, then, is not just an anthology of “poetry out of communist China” (as the
publishers have titled it- which is a misnomer because some of the verse was written by
Xiang in America after he and Zhang Ling came to the U.S. in 1997). It is a document
illustrating the long lyrical journey of a poet.
Now to the book itself.
The anthology spans forty-one years, beginning with poems written in 1962. Just like
almost everything else in Huang Xiang’s life, his meeting with the translator of the book,
Andrew Emerson, a New Jersey businessman, descendant of Ralph Waldo, was an act
of serendipity, a mystic meeting. They met by “coincidence” at a party at the house where
Huang Xiang and Zhang Ling live in 1997.
Shortly after the meeting, the two agreed that Emerson would translate Huang Xiang’s
work into English. The result of the five-year association is this book, which is a
masterwork. Stunningly, Andrew Emerson died suddenly several months after the
publication of this book. The fact that Huang Xiang delivered one of the eulogies at
Andrew Emerson’s funeral speaks volumes of the relationship they had developed
through this work. In this farewell to their friend, Huang Xiang and Zhang Ling write, “A
few years ago, as we wandered aimlessly in a strange land, you appeared before us like
an angel, to build a bridge that would link our cultures of East and West and our two
cultures.”
Because I do not read Chinese, my review of the poetry in this book is not a review of
Huang Xiang’s original writing (Chinese scholars say that the language Huang Xiang
uses in his poetry is impeccable), but rather a review of the English translations by
Andrew Emerson.
It is stunning that Emerson, who learned Chinese in the military, had no experience
translating poetry before. The English translations can stand alone as sharp and lyrical
verse. Also, Emerson did an incredible job of conveying in English the populist and
accessible spirit of Huang Xiang’s poetry, without sacrificing deftness of language, form
and craft.
There are several touchtone themes that run through the poetry but the one constant, the
one theme that never changes, is Huang Xiang’s love for his wife, his muse, Zhang Ling
(whose pen name is Qiu Xiao Yu Lan). In his 36 page essay at the beginning of the book,
“Poets Life, Hero’s Life”, Emerson writes, “As they came to know each other, Huang
learned that she (Zhang) had heard of him some months earlier…Even before they met,
she realized her destiny was to form a classic romantic relationship with a poet, to take
responsibility for him and protect him”.
“Both Huang and Zhang” writes Emerson, “realized that in each other they had found their
soul mates, and their spirits soared.”
For cynics who do not believe in things such as soul mates, or muses, or even devotion,
it is important to understand that after their idyllic meeting, they would suffer great
persecution together (the Chinese government, trying to get at Huang Xiang made up a
story that he had raped Zhang Ling- and then actually arrested her when she refused to
sign the phony papers). Yet through all the years of separation and persecution, Huang
Xiang and Zhang Ling continued to be devoted top each other.
In the poem, “We Have Been Kept Apart for So Long” Xiang, writes about the pain of
separation.
We have been kept apart for so long, my wife
So long that the puppy you were raising has grown up.
So long that even the sparrows beneath the eves have grown.
The love-birds that you kept in a cage have died because you forgot to feed them;
The cloud-white long-haired rabbit you kept has run off for the lack of loving care.
My wife, we have been kept apart for so long
At this time of reunion, oh my wife,
Why does your silence hurt me so?
What sustained Huang Xiang and Zhang Ling even through such suffering, as artists,
was a steadfast belief in love, in beauty, and the power of freedom of expression. Despite
the efforts of others to classify him as a “political poet”, Huang Xiang refuses to see
himself in such a narrow way. The fact that he was a dissident, and an inspiration to the
student protesters of Tian An Men Square in the late 1980’s, is more evidence of China’s
totalatarian regime. Huang Xiang was a threat not because he was political, but rather
because he told his fellow citizens that they were indeed free.
In his poem “Van Gogh”, written after being released from a long stint in prison, written in
solitude to his wife’s concerns, written with the ferocity of a bird who has been released
from its caged existence after five years, Xiang uses the subject of Vincent Van Gogh to
tell us the importance of freedom, of color, of individuality to our lives. After years of being
forced to wear drab gray prison uniforms, Huang Xiang explodes with color as Van Gogh
did.
The painting holds high like torches
Sunflowers turning high-heaven’s blazing
Sun
To burn up the magnificent painting spirit stopped by a bullet
To burn down the brilliant temple of golden yellow
Opaque color-dabs like clots of
Blood
Gush fiery tears
Struggling lines feverishly erupt, twitching like raw nerves
In conclusion, lovers of both poetry and the lives of poetry will find this collection an
important one. As I have said, you may find the price prohibitive, but you should not let
that stop you from knowing Huang Xiang and his poetry. The publisher has made
discounts available for orders of five books or more (available at www.mellenpress.com).
Also, the volume is available at Poets House, and could be ordered at your local library.
The point is that this is an important book, and you need to read it.
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