Comeback (Chinese-English) – Hsu Chicheng Poems – A Review
Hsu Chicheng. REAPPEARANCE. (Chinese English). Trans. Yang Zongze. Publishers: The Earth Culture Press (USA). Chongqing City, PR China, 2008, p. 153. Price: US$15.00. ISBN 978-0-9637599-6-5/A.061
Aging is not only natural but also a blessing from God. It is an opportunity to rejuvenate yourself by reviving life with hope. Hsu Chicheng, a renowned contemporary Chinese poet, writer and translator, with an oeuvre of 15 books, including eight poetry collections, is synonymous with aging gracefully. Specialized in reading and writing, and widely translated into Greek, Japanese, English, and Mongolian, Hsu regards the elderly and aging with respect.
There are people over 50 who feel more than 35, or even less. Hsu Chicheng, at 70, confidently seeks “another world” and “another spring” like “a newborn.” “I’m just a baby,” says the retired academic. He feels free: “I have freed myself from the chains of time and watches”.
I find the poet inspiring as he is not discouraged by the age he has reached. Rather, poetry makes him young; he tries to do or improve without impeding his creative faculty to think and dream as he goes on “climbing a mountain” or “taking a spring walk” or “waiting patiently” or “rechewing over and over again.”
Bilingual poet and special editor-in-chief of The World Poets Quarterly, Hsu Chicheng, makes aging an enriching experience. As a poet of hope, he observes life at the natural rhythm and cycle:
“Is it time for you to get off work?
Yet you look back time and time again
From what and from whom are you reluctant to part?
….
look! Sun
He comes with his strong rays
like the rising waves
On the Yangtze River…”
(‘The view on a winter morning’
and
“The collapse of Witner, a tyrant
To welcome the arrival of spring
That day
The world will be completely full of
Sunlight, flowers and joy”
(‘A hope in winter’)
and
“Yeah, she’s busy indeed
…
However, she does not feel tired and works day and night.
Always appearing cheerful, radiant with a smile.
Your best wish is to see
All things on earth come back to life
Growing, blooming…”
(‘Spring is busy now’)
The poet seeks to live again, giving meaning to contemporary life, with naturalness, joy, and talking, singing, running or walking fast like a Youngman, or even dancing like a drunk. His poems, as Hsu acknowledges in the preface to Reappearance, speak of a return to youth and childhood:
“We lift our heads and pass by, hoping for another world
We lift our heads and look, hoping for another spring.”
(‘Reappearance’)
He becomes spiritual when he declares:
“When spring comes and luck appears,
I will become a butterfly, flying gracefully
In a brilliant flower of poetry.”
(‘To become a butterfly’)
Another striking aspect of Hsu Chicheng’s poetry is the expression of social consciousness. He is deeply rooted in the native consciousness of him as a Taiwanese and, despite the winds of change, he follows his own path: “I only persevere in my own ideal / I am not a migratory bird / I love this land” and “I will” . never give up”. He sounds tense due to the tugs of political changes and the pace of the communicative revolution, just as he seems convinced that reality is not real.
Confronting the new realities facing Taiwan, Hsu Chicheng expresses his anger: “Those politicians…/ They have taken away/ All the benefit of spring/ People have to sink into the abyss of suffering.” With a fighting spirit, Hsu wraps his social concerns in imagery of nature and makes poetry a means of protest against the nightmarish existence, sustained by con men, looters, criminals, murderers, corrupt officials, and schismatic politicians among others. He ironically asks, “How could it be like this?” However, he is confident: “Taipei is always the starting point of revival” and “happiness and wealth will arise.”
It seems that the pressure of globalization and socio-economic changes facing the political identity of Taiwanese literati made Yang Zongze choose Hsu Chicheng’s poems to translate into English. Hsu deserves to be better known and poet and translator Yang Zongze seems textually quite subtle and effective in communicating the Taiwanese poet’s worldview, which is rich in images of nature and society and seeks to uphold humanity and justice. Congratulations to Yang’s touching and empathetic labor of love!
Dr. RK Singh, Professor and Director, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian School of the University of Minas, Dhanbad 826004 India
