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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing English-Chinese Edition January 2023
To Mother, poems by Yan Li.
To Mother
When you brought me into this world,
I was destined to have your bliss like a fish in the water.
Beyond swimming in rivers, lakes and oceans,
I have discerned the bizarre tricks of beneficial baits and
the depth of man-made whirlpools.
Once I spent my whole breath that I have held for decades
to dive into poetry that plumbs the definition of survival
and learned severely —
as long as it is a fishbowl
it cannot become bigger beyond its boundaries.
The tides of time surge turbulently.
The day you bid farewell to me
suddenly descends.
Yet the you who has inhabited inside me
continues to bless me to surf thousands of miles
This is the day you bring me out into the world again —
that new world of heaven and earth,
you are also going for the first time
and my imagination
follows you to learn dancing a second time
You are eternal —
no other milk is comparable.
I believe in the claims of flesh and blood
but not in any abstract notions of
hijacked motherhood.
致母亲
被你带进这个世界
我注定在你的祝福中如鱼得水
畅游江河湖海之外
更识别了利益鱼饵的诡异以及
人为旋涡的深浅
我曾用几十年憋足的一口气
潜泳在讲究生存定义的诗歌里
并且深深地领教了
只要是鱼缸
就不可能大于它的局限
岁月波涛汹涌
你与我告别的日子
突然降临
而定居我体内的你
继续祝福我冲浪千里
这是你带我再次出世的日子
那个上天入地的新世界
你也是第一次去
而我的联想
则在后面第二次翩翩学舞
你是永远的
其他的乳汁没有可比性
我坚信血肉的称呼
不相信任何绑架了母爱的
抽象名词
Limited Alcohol Consumption
My father and I never exchanged
Emails
Nor did we ever call over cell phones
He never treated me at McDonald’s.
I know this is bullshit
Because he died in the devastated days of the Cultural Revolution
In the early 1980s
Now he and I can sometimes mumble a bit
That only happens in my drunken daze
So that’s one reason for me to drink
I want to drink until he could talk to me on my cell phone
Connect me via emails
Eat at Starbucks if not at McDonald’s
But well
By now
To drink until all of these things could happen
You have to have a divine’s drinking capacity
酒量有限
我和我父亲从来没有通过
电子邮件
也没有打过手机
他更没有请我吃过麦当劳
我知道这是废话
因为他死于被文革蹂躏的日子里
上世纪八十年代初
现在我和他有时候可以哼哈两句
那也是在我酒后的恍惚中发生
所以这成为我喝酒的一个理由
我想喝到他能与我打手机
通电子邮件
不吃麦当劳也能喝杯星巴克
可是啊
事到如今
要喝到这几样事情都能发生
必须拥有上帝的酒量才行
That Bird
After clearing out my literary heritage
I am only left with a shrill
Birdcall
Not discerning between polite and procedural
I have spent my life rehearsing that
Sharp cry
Until I
Became the bird
那只鸟
清理了文学遗产后
我只留下一声尖利的
不分客套和形容词的
鸟叫声
我此生就是演练那声
尖利的叫
直到我
叫成了那只鸟
English translation © Anna Yin/© Yan Li
严力（诗人、艺术家）1954年生于北京。1973年开始诗歌创作，1979年开始绘画创作。是1979年北京先锋艺术团体“星星画会”和文学团体“今天”的成员。1984年在上海人民公园展览厅举办了国内最早的先锋艺术的个人画展。1985年从北京留学美国并于1987年在纽约创立“一行”诗刊，（2000年停刊），2020年6月在纽约复刊，继续任主编。2018年出任纽约“法拉盛诗歌节”主任委员，同年出任纽约“海外华文作家笔会”会长。
Yan Li (poet and artist) was born in Beijing in 1954. He started writing poetry in 1973 and painting in 1979. He was a member of the pioneering art group “Star Painting Club” and the literary group “Today” in Beijing in 1979, and held the first solo exhibition of pioneering art in China in 1984. In 1987, he founded the poetry journal “First Line New York” (which ceased publication in 2000) and resumed publication in New York in June 2020, where he continues to serve as editor-in-chief. He is the president of the Overseas Chinese Writers’ Association.