Yi Feng
on translating Jiemin Liu (刘洁岷)
I like Jiemin Liu’s poems not only because of the nostalgia in the loss of the rural due to the industrialization in China, but also due to the estrangement, puns and dynamics in his poetic language. When I translated his poems, I tried to keep the original cultural features of the Chinese language in my English translation. For instance, the title of the poem’s literary translation is “Cobweb’s Traces: Counting” and the semantic translation is “Clues: Counting.” My translation is “Cobweb Clues: Counting,” which tries to combine these two translations. Cobweb, or spider’s web, in Chinese, is an abbreviation of an old Chinese saying, “蛛丝马迹,” which refers to clues or hints, for discovering something secret or hidden. I keep the translation of the original Chinese saying to indicate the unique image in the Chinese saying, and I add “clues” — the implied meaning of the Chinese saying — after “counting” in the hope that English readers can see the subtle connection between cobweb and clues in their imagination. This poem is about the fast development of China and the industrialization of rural areas. The last stanza has a pun, which reminds me of Jean-Paul Sartre’s thoughts on William Faulkner’s nostalgia towards the old South, “Faulkner is the one who is sitting in a carriage moving forward but keeps looking back.”
about the author
Jiemin Liu was a poet, and a poetry editor in Wuhan, China. Born in Songzi, Hubei province, in 1964, Jiemin Liu founded New Han Poetry, a journal of poetry in 2003, the Modern and Contemporary Poetic Studies column in Jianghan Academic in 2004, and the ‘New Poetry Road’ public account number in 2016. He published and edited poetry collections, including Liu Jiemin Poems, Roots and Tongue Roots, Under the Shadow of Ants, and Mutual Gaze. His poems are also compiled and published in The Distinction of Islands, The Charm of Group Portraits, Cross-Strait Poetry Collection in the 21st Century. He now lives in Wuhan.
about the translator
Yi Feng is a scholar, translator, poet, and associate professor at Northeastern University, China. Her English poems have been published in The Penn Review, Model Minority, and Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine. Her Chinese poems have been published in Lotus (芙蓉) and Chinese Poetry Website. Her translation of poems appeared in journals in China and the US, such as Poetry Monthly (诗歌月刊), DoubleSpeak Magazine and Anomaly. She was awarded the Hunt Scholarship in 2016. She has won the Bronze Prize in the 2017 International Competition in Short Chinese Poems. She lives in Shenyang, China.
