I LOST A POEM 我遺失了一首詩

CONTENTS

	THE SOUND OF A SHELL 螺音 By Hsia Ching 夏菁 Translated by C. W. WANG 王季文

	1001 NIGHTS 一千零一夜 By Fei Ma (William MARR) 非馬 Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機

	HOMECOMING 歸來 By CHEN I-chih 陳義芝 Translated by Chris Wen-Chao LI 李文肇

	I LOST A POEM 我遺失了一首詩 By CHOU Ying-Hsiu 周盈秀 Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機

	PASSION 激情 By Hsiang Ming 向明 Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機

	WINTER IN BEIJING 北京冬日 By Hsiang Ming 向明 Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機

	LISTENING TO THE SUNNY SIDE OF SICKNESS 聆聽病的晴朗 By HSU Shui-fu 許水富 Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機

	OLD-STYLE FRIENDSHIP— in memory of Chiao Chiao 老式的友情──為橋橋逝世三周年 By YAO Yni Ying 姚宜瑛 Translated by Linda WONG 黃瑩達

	ENVY 愛慕 By HAO Yu-hsiang 郝譽翔 Translated by David and Ellen DETERDING 戴德巍與陳艷玲

	FINGERTIPS ON ICE 指尖滑過冰塊 By Yu-wen Cheng 宇文正 Translated by Carlos G. TEE 鄭永康

	A BLOW TO THE FACE 耳光 By YUAN Chiung-chiung 袁瓊瓊 Translated by Daniel J. BAUER 鮑端磊

	WENG MING-CHUAN’S BAMBOO CARVED TEA UTENSILS: A Marriage of Aesthetic Form and Intrinsic Poise 翁明川的竹雕茶具：外顯美形內蘊敬意 By FU Chen 傅珍 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	TEA UTENSILS AS TIMELESS ART— Weng Ming-chuan’s Groundbreaking Bamboo Carving 茶器小品變身傳世藝術：前無古人的翁明川竹雕創作 By WU Te-liang 吳德亮 Ttranslated by David van der Peet 范德培

	CHARACTERISTICS OF WENG MING-CHUAN’S BAMBOO-CARVING ART 翁明川竹雕藝術的特色 By SU Chi-ming 蘇啟明 Ttranslated by David van der Peet 范德培

	THE ART OF WENG MING-CHUAN’S BAMBOO CARVING 翁明川竹藝雅雕 By WU Chian-hwa 吳千華 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	NEWS & EVENTS 文化活動 Compiled by Sarah Jen-hui HSIANG 項人慧

	NEW BOOKS BY OUR MEMBERS 會員新書

	NOTES ON AUTHORS AND TRANSLATORS 作者與譯者簡介

	APPENDIX : CHINESE ORIGINALS 附錄：中文原著

	2008 INDEX

	CLEAR RADIANCE 清輝, 2005............................Cover

	A DRUNKEN ODE TO LOVE 醉吟風月, 2005 OUTSHONE BY THE MOON 月明星淡, 2005 ........................................................................Back Cover By WENG Ming-chuan 翁明川

CHOU Ying-Hsiu 周盈秀

I LOST A POEM
我遺失了一首詩*

translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機

I lost a poem
It was about sixty lines long
Had male genitals and
Two breasts
It was a little fat and
Had no hair

“Go, go, go outside and look for it,” said the policeman

If I were a poem
Where would I go if I went away?
Summer’s scorching sun
Would melt it into prose
Dense and crowded
Was a place of the past
A place that was me

I vaguely remember
Casting it aside
A woman who’d jab her own hands with a knitting needle
Is the evil legacy of the tale of Sleeping Beauty
To teach a woman, just awakened from sleep
To fall in love with
A man who’d like to harass her

But I patrolled the bed
The legs rolled up in the bed sheet
Were hairy, faintly scarred
Even the darkness amid the faint odor of
His underwear
Had no where to hide

If I were a poem
Where would I go?
Perhaps to
Stroll in the countryside
Only to throw myself high in the air
But who’d catch me?

For this reason I visited a tourist farm
Mountain mist, greenish fog, plank walk
Watched as flocks of sheep passed through a key ring
At last
Dizzy, I laid down inside the bags on the tour bus
Picking up something a little touching

But it wasn’t
The poem that
I had lost

If I were a poem
What memory would I cherish most?
The panting from the womb
The metrics of a human being coming into the world
The milk, and later the white hair, of a mother

Babies
The collective unconscious
Screams and silly laughter
We have long forgotten, how we first
Lay on our backs, lifting our two legs
To our mouth

I clasped mother’s sagging belly
My home of twenty years before
Now aged
The poem wasn’t there
But I know, it had come to visit

Then
From the mouths of others
I never ceased collecting myself
Cobbling together the marks it left behind

If I were a poem
Why would I want to go away?

*	From the Epoch Poetry Quarterly 《創世紀》詩雜誌 No. 150, Spring 2007: 94.