POET : CHEN HSIU-CHENTRANSLATED BY : Lee Kuei-shien
Tree and leaves 樹與葉
The letter has energy
I hug it tightly when shivering
The letter may glow
I hug it deeply in the dark
The letter is a prophet
I hug it hard when I am in distress
The letter is a warrior
I hug it when I am weak
I hug the letter
as if a branch holds the leaves firmly
When the letter becomes
unbearable weight of life
I will start to release the leaves one by one
waiting for the tree ring to wake up the new leaves
in another season.
Singing 唱歌
In the van bounding for Pristina
the group of poets sang in laughter all the way
while I was watching the scenery outdoors
in the melody ups and downs.
Most of leaves have turned into yellow or red
those two warm colors are gifts for the winter.
As we went across the mountains of Kosovo
it emerged in my mind from time to time
the pink capsules of Taiwan Golden-rain Tree.
Happy songs drive away the fog.
When asked to sing a Taiwanese song
I was so flustered that
could not find a folk song completely remembered.
Finally, I barely sang a section of
sad “rainy night flowers”.
Is it because
a sad Taiwanese
so I could not find a happy song?
Flag 旗
The color of petals painted Prizren hillside
looks like a red handkerchief
hanging in the early winter dusk
confronting my eyes
longing for warm.
It also looks like a sail
heading for my sleepless midnight
approaching to my heart
surrounded by sea.
In early morning
a flag
is waiting for your wind
to wave
let me recognize
whether a sign to hello
or farewell.
In Prizren 在普里茲倫
Passing through the heavy fogs of the Saar Mountains
we arrived at revolutionary foundation built by the League of Prizren
The fortified castle on the hilltop
could not prison the spring breeze
could not prohibit the trend of Albanian independence
Under free sky
the street artists sang Albanian folk song
the poets from various countries followed the music to dance
We took a picture on the bridge
I wanted standing still
to become a part of eternal landscape in Prizren
We gathered under an old tree of four hundred years
listening to her an ethnic history of bloody suffering
I would write down our Taiwanese story
Under the hillside
I was busy looking for wildflowers
as if looking for an affectionate person to meet
This was my unexpected journey
I could not find the same flower twice
The poetry festival came to an end
A certain poets had to kiss us goodbye here
saying farewell in their heart
Retrograde Vallejo’s footprints /逆向巴列霍足跡
From the bustling capital Lima
to the quiet highlands of the Andes mountains
from Trujillo university to secondary school
returning to homeland San Diego de Chanco
I retrograded Vallejo's footprints
If life can be retrograded
Vallejo’s childish elder brother
can slip out of his grave in hiding
and continues to play unfinished hide and seek
If life can be retrograded
Vallejo may be still in a cynical mind
to taste endlessly the bitter of life
as well as to suffer the prison and exile
with the hard bones blessed by God
Ah
the anger broke the soul of Vallejo
down into a lot of flesh*
His poem is his scars and shadows
just like the woman's stretch marks
Anyone walks on own way
none can change the way of others
Though I want
to stop at the terminal of Vallejo
in order to write his unfinished life poems
for him with a crown of thorns
*Excerpted from the poem of Vallejo “ The Anger That Breaks a Man Down into
Boys / La cólera que quiebra al hombre en niños”.
Chen Hsiu-chen
Chen Hsiu-chen 陳秀珍(Taiwan)
【About the Poet】
Chen Hsiu-chen, graduated from Department of Chinese Literature in Tamkang University and has been served as an editor in newspaper and magazines, now is one of the editor members of “Li Poetry Sociaty”. Her publications include essay “A Diary About My Son, 2009”, poetry “String Echo in Forest, 2010”, ”Mask, 2018”, “Uncertain Landscape, 2017”, “Tamsui poetry, 2018”and “BoneFracture, 2018” Mandarin-English-Spanish trilingual “Promise, 2017” as well as Mandarin-English “My Beloved Neruda”.
Her poems have been selected into Mandarin-English-Spanish trilingual anthologies “Poetry Road Between Two-Hemispheres, 2015” and “Voices from Taiwan, 2017”, Spanish “Opus Testimoni, 2017”, Italian “Dialoghi, 2017” and “Quaderni di traduzione, 2018”, as well as English “Whispers of Soflay, Vol. 2, 2018” and “Amaravati Poetic Prism, 2018”. Her poems have been also translated into Bengali, Albanian, Turkish and the like.
She participated Formosa International Poetry Festivals in Taiwan held in 2015~2019 annually, Kathak International Poets Summit in Dhaka, Bangladesh,
2016, International Poetry Festival “Ditët e Naimit” in Tetova, Macedonia, 2016, Capulí Vallejo y su Tierra in Peru, 2017, International Poetry Festival of Sidi Bou Saïd Tunisia, 2018, “Tras las Huellas del Poeta”in Chile, 2018, 3rd International Poetry Festival in Hanoi, Vietnam, 2019, 6thIasi International Poetry Festival in Romania, 2019, as well as Primer Festival Internacional de Poesía por Ediciones El nido del fénix, 2019. She was awarded with estrella matutina by Festival of Capulí Vallejo y su Tierra in Peru, 2018. Lebanon Naji Naaman Literary Prizes 2020.