Commentary: OK. Poems: Incredible. :( they called it a screw I swallowed industrial wastewater and unemployment forms bent over machines, our youth died young I swallowed labor, I swallowed poverty swallowed pedestrian bridges, swallowed this rusted-out life I can’t swallow any more everything I’ve swallowed roils up in my throat I spread across my country a poem of shame I can only imagine how much more beautiful it reads in the native tongue.I swallowed an iron moon
I agree. I think the full poetic intention gets lost in most translations. For some expressions the whole meaning makes sense only in their native tongues. Specially when you're dealing with words that have no precise translation. I worked in a factory before. And back then I was writing poems in this context. Somehow that influence, good or bad, stayed in my writing. Maybe this would give a whole new genre: Industrial poetry. :D These poets in China seem to be becoming, unfortunately due to the circumstances, the avangarde of this style.