Undying Springs: Translated Chinese Queer Feminist Community Poetry

离离草 Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective

 

Translators’ Note

These poems are from 离离草 Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective’s poetry writing workshops in 2023. They were originally written in Chinese using the Exquisite Corpse method, where workshop participants continued after each other’s lines under a tight time limit to co-author collective languages and narratives. 

The two poems we have selected here, “Womb,” and “「Liquid Heart」” were written in workshops that engaged with the assemblages of our diasporic imaginations of “home.” Together, we processed the (dis)connections of experiences during summer 2023, when a lot of our community members traveled back to China for the first time in several years since the pandemic. CAO Collective members translated the poems and wrote the translators’ note.

As translators, we put in a lot of work triangulating accuracy to the original text and integrity of the standalone English poem, while being aware of power dynamics between Chinese and English. We hope to carve out a space for Chinese expressions that might seem opaque or illegible to English readers. Because these poems were collectively written by six to eight people in workshops, there are many different voices within each poem, as well as conversations between writers. Sometimes, we have to make creative or even imaginative decisions, while other times we take a step back to leave space for multiple interpretations. These collaborative processes rebuild our own lifeworlds and languages that traverse national, geographic, and generational borders.

Therefore, we urge readers to approach these translated poems as intricate conversations, to look for instances of dissonance, care, and play. We would also like to share the form of collective writing and invite the readers to gather a few friends and read these poems together, and write ones of your own.

 

Womb 

This is a transparent womb
Lights crafted from leaves
envelop it like the wind

Am I inside or outside?

I steal glances into the lights of other homes
on tiptoes

I still don’t know how I’ve grown up
yet sometimes at night I can breathe

Maybe it’s not always a butterfly emerging from a cocoon
I merely want to remain the jade-green caterpillar

Innumerable caterpillars gnawing at the leaves’ edges
Turning over the history book
page by page

Finally there will be a day
when the lights fade
the wind stagnates
Time is devoured by the womb

 

「Liquid Heart」

Laolao is in the kitchen early morning, whipping up pancakes with scallions in the batter
The rims of the pancakes are crispy

Snow-white noodles, snow-white liquidy egg
My just-met roommate’s mama was deftly managing three pots just now one simmering with
baby bok choy, one with eggs swaying in water, the other self-explanatory

Every time I glance back, it’s always baba bustling in Phoenix Legend music

During emotional moments at home, I used a lot of the napkins
from the town gas station that mama goes to a lot
I wonder if mama’s heart resembles the napkins soaked in my tears?
Ripped in pieces
Dampened
All that I have established on that land, enduring enormous pain
flows away with the yolk
the moment I sink my teeth into the tender egg

Can cooked and raw egg white comprehend each other?
They have never met their parents. Are we accomplices?
Our lips and teeth, the tips of our tongues, the flavors we’ve savored
The words we uttered, the words we can’t utter,
the words we are coerced to utter, the words we don’t have a language for
Is the egg white, is the yolk, or is it eggshell.

 

Original Chinese texts:

子宫

这是一个透明的子宫
灯光是树叶做成的
像风一样包裹着

我在里还在外？

我偷窥着万家灯火
踮起脚尖

我还是不知道我怎么长大了
但有时候晚上我可以breathe

可能迎来的不一定是破茧成蝶
我只想继续当翠绿色的小虫

无数小虫啃食着叶面的边缘
翻过历史书一页一页

终有一天
灯光熄灭
风也停滞

时间被子宫吞噬

「流心」

姥姥一大早在厨房里烙煎饼 有葱花在面糊里
饼子的边是脆的 

雪白的挂面 雪白的溏心蛋
刚刚陌生室友的妈妈忙活着三个锅 一锅给上海青焯水 一锅清水荡着鸡蛋 另外一锅不言自明

每次一回头总是爸爸伴着凤凰传奇的音乐在忙活

在家里emotional的时候用了好多镇上妈妈常去的加油站送的纸
我想妈妈的心会不会也想是我哭湿的纸一样
一片一片的
潮潮的
我在那一片土地上在巨大的痛苦中所建立起的一切
在咬下溏心蛋的一瞬间 全部和蛋黄一起流走了

蛋白与蛋清可以理解彼此吗？
ta们与爸爸妈妈从未谋面，我们是帮凶吗？
我们的唇齿，舌尖，尝过的味道，
说出的话，说不出的话，被迫说出的话，不会说的话。
是蛋白是蛋黄，还是鸡蛋壳。
春天埋在哪里