David Ignatow (1914-1997), a famous American poet of the 20th century, was born in New York and has taught literary writing at the University of Kentucky, the University of Kansas, Vassal College, the City University of New York, New York University, and Columbia University since 1964. From 1980 to 1984, he served as president of the American Poetry Association. From 1936 to 1976, he edited the famous American Poetry Review and other poetry publications. Since 1948, he has published more than 10 poetry collections and three volumes of prose. He has won numerous awards, including the Bollingen Poetry Prize, the Guggenheim Prize, the John Steinpelk Prize, the Frostster Gold Medal, the Shelley Memorial Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Poetry Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, and the American Poetry Society Award.
We sat in silenceDong Jiping: In silence, we sit at the dinner table – there is always some kind of obstacle between us – we bite into our own food. It is that our relative love that disappears under our throats and never appears again except as waste. Timely
Translated by Dong Jiping
There are my enemies in the middle of the leaves.
Listen to that in order to get together
Conspiracy whispers
Let's rub against the body.
I'm going to turn around
Let their conversation continue to heat up
At the same time I wait for them in the middle of the season
Collapse. From the observatoryDong Jiping: Every step is to arrive or come from an object, and there is no echo in heaven or hell. The earth trembled under his heels or from the impact of a stone. Many stones fall from outer space, and the earth itself flies. It poked its head out among the stars that were dead, dying, or on fire. The seasons doubt themselvesDong Jiping translated the seasons doubting themselves, and they gave way to each other. Doubting oneself by day is like night; They come, look around, and slowly leave. The sun will never be the same. People give birth, people prosper and then die, and the sun is a flame of doubt that warms our bodies. Each stoneDong Jiping: Every stone is its shape, each shape is its weight, each weight is its value, in my garden, when I dig them up for spring planting, I say, every time I pick up one, there is a joy to be able to grasp so many meaningful differences. I shook my fist at a tree
Translated by Dong Jiping
I shook my fist at a tree
Say, one day you will
For all your exuberance and variety
And the fallen leaves, but I will be sure to let you
Continue in my mind
Your current state. Except in my heart
You have no memory. I was going to
Leaf after leaf
Write to you. Those dead brown leaves lay in front of my door
As if to let me die before they pass away into the land
Seeing their final plight, I am
Your only witness. If I'm for
I have to see you die and live, then except for life
There is no answer to your death, and I am living.
One of the fallsDong Jiping: The forest stands like a group of people waiting for a decision. They are stiff and erect, a predetermined verdict. I stood in front of them feeling guilty but trying to survive - unsure of myself, timid, my shoulders hunched. I straightened up and sang. They are silent. I turned and strode away, waving my arms up and down like a soldier. I had nowhere to go, nothing special to do, I kept walking in. Autumn twoDong Jiping: A leaf trembling and lying in front of my door, about to be blown away by the wind. If I were to take it to the still air of my room, it would lie quietly on my windowsill facing the tree from which it had fallen. Weather
Translated by Dong Jiping
Wind says to survive for myself
Rain says Survive for myself
Night Says Survive for Myself
I lowered my head and rolled up my collarThinkDong Jiping: I am stuck in the body of a fish. If I were a fish itself, this speech would be the sound of water running away through my gills, and I would be like all fish stuck in the mouth of a bigger fish, or caught in a net or dying as a fish. Think of me stuck in it, a person with the right to freedom trained to think like me, and my mind is another kind of net, because this right to freedom is a torture, like being stuck in the body of a fish. RotateDong Jiping: I stretched out my hands to you, and you said that your hands do not exist. You also say that I have no hands, that I have the illusion of an opponent, and that to speak to you is to speak to myself, to attract myself to become one with me. You thou swervered and stood in one place—the top of the buzzing to show me the meaning of your words. It makes you happy, and you make me move, and when I start crying, I start spinning. DownsideDong Jiping: There is a hole in the land I am afraid of. I drooped myself into it, first tying one end of the long rope to a nearby tree and the other end to my waist. I let myself droop step by step, clutching the rope tightly, and with each step I firmly anchored my feet in the earthy walls. As I descended, I inhaled less and less air, inhaling more and more mixtures of minerals and slime, wet, heavy, and closed. I began to lose consciousness and was afraid that I would let go of the rope I was holding on to and fall into the bottom of the hole, suffocated by the mud that had fallen on top of my head from the four walls. It was this fear of the funeral that led me to climb down. LinguisticsDong Jiping: Translation: I heard a man without a tongue talking. He hummed, in harmony with the grammar. It's easy to understand that he wants a tongue and says he's lost it. I was very touched and very happy that he was able to send a signal, but who could help him? All he could do was teach him to write and make it his subject. We will embrace Him, knowing that there are lost legs, arms, heads, and ** in our midst, that we can talk about endlessly on our own. When I see schools of fish swimmingDong Jiping: When I saw the fish swimming and asked if I could join in, I was very sad that we had to be separated from the only world that we had between us. I saw eyes exchange between men and women, lips to torso, and as we parted, I thought I was surrounded by a loud cry in the air. I also joined others in raising my characteristic mournful voice. No more sexual cravingsTranslated by Dong Jiping There is no longer a desire for sex, the sea is moving savagely, the face is staring at the skull and knuckles, the love is lost, the streets are silent, the sound of hollowness, hurried footsteps, like death coming from a cave, we pass through each other, like a train whistling byTo my daughterLi Yiliang: After I die, name a star after me, so that you will understand that I have not left you or forgotten you. For me, you are such a star, after you were born, in your childhood, your hand takes my hand, and after my death names me a star, so that I will shine above your head until you and I are together in darkness and silenceSkyLi Yiliang: I was told that I would be buried next to my parents. Yes, dear son should have been better, we love you. Lie down beside us and gaze at the sky. MidnightLi Yiliang translated Midnight, the house was silent, and a musical instrument was playing softly in the distance. I'm alone. In a deep tone, the world seems to have come to its end. IdyllicLi Yiliang translated: We are like dew drops falling on the ground and stroking the faces of living creatures at night. Death is soft, moist, and everywhere, and when they fall, they quickly cover all living things. This explains the sea and the sun. To YetiLi Yiliang looked out the window at the trees and counted the leaves, and a voice told me that nothing can be perfect, why bother to work in vain, I am my own thief of time. After death I want to be said to have wasted my life, to indulge in the feeling of total uselessness, to enjoy it and feel life more intensely than when I toiled it. Today, I understand myself from a stone or a hammer. More than anythingLi Yiliang Translation: I used to pray for death, but now I am at its door**, and I have changed my view of the world. It deserves to continue; It was beautiful, even if it was a dream, but it was full of water and seeds, plants and animals, people like me, ships, buildings, and the news that permeated the space—it was like a beauty, if I had seen it. In the next world, I will remember this one, and I will praise more than anything. The earth is solidFor my heels, the earth is firm and it makes me stand upright, like a child standing on his mother's belly. And for the sky, I was a sudden visitor.