{"id":25893,"date":"2023-04-04T17:12:06","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T15:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=25893"},"modified":"2025-09-10T12:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:25:12","slug":"yang-lian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/yang-lian\/","title":{"rendered":"Yang Lian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Swiss-born Chinese poet Yang Lian, who is associated with China&#8217;s Misty Poets, lives in London. His latest book translated into English, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloodaxebooks.com\/ecs\/product\/a-tower-built-downwards-1315\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>A Tower Build Downwards<\/em><\/a>, won an English PEN Award.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"ose-vimeo ose-uid-8e73cb165b63dafd34b3bb10fe8f1605 ose-embedpress-responsive\" style=\"width:600px; height:550px; max-height:550px; max-width:100%; display:inline-block;\" data-embed-type=\"Vimeo\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" title=\"Yang Lian for Poetry Markaz, April &#039;23\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/814501715?dnt=0&amp;app_id=122963&title=0&color=00ADEF&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=0&loop=0&autopause=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"encrypted-media;accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;gyroscope;picture-in-picture fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Researching Evil<\/h4>\n<h4>Yang Lian<\/h4>\n<p>translated by Brian Holton<\/p>\n<p>Prefatory Note<\/p>\n<p>The foundations of this poem were two important events in 2022: first, the Ukraine War; second, China\u2019s Chained Woman. She was a sex slave kidnapped and sold by traffickers to Shifeng County, Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province. When she was found her tongue had been cut out, all her teeth extracted, and around her neck was an iron chain: her psychological state and her powers of speech had been grossly impaired and she had been left with severe disabilities; she had also been raped and had borne eight children as a result of \u201ctraditional\u201d treatment by the peasants who bought the use of her. This incident has reduced \u201cMother\u201d to the dirtiest word in the vocabulary of the Chinese language. After this was exposed on the Internet, it set off a tidal wave of popular anger, gaining tens of millions of hits, shares, and comments in no time at all, as well as fierce attacks on the official media and the legal system which cover up underworld vice. Since the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre in Beijing, this is the first time the Chinese people have exploded in a massive movement of spiritual enlightenment. I have called it \u201cAn off-street Tiananmen.\u201d<em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>white snow can be an infernal machine too<br \/>\nto crush\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 so many dying of a life<br \/>\nso many ghosts released by one death<br \/>\nPushkin\u2019s tears<br \/>\nTsvetaeva\u2019s tears<br \/>\npile on the shoulders of bronze statues\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 unmelting metal<br \/>\npawning rhymes of nothingness\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 dragged through<br \/>\nthe hearts set up as empty shells<br \/>\na poem might also be\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (can only be)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the mass grave of poetry<br \/>\nburial locking up pain too deep for tears<br \/>\nthe same early spring ten thousand miles away<br \/>\nnailed into a collarbone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a catastrophe<br \/>\ndrowns another catastrophe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 recycled flesh and blood<br \/>\nrecycled into forgetting\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 so many ghosts<br \/>\nstill crawling from resurrection-emptied graves<br \/>\nmotionless ruins reduced to rubble in their mouths<br \/>\nmaking us mistakenly think<br \/>\nan era of despair is new<\/p>\n<p>why has this muddy and inert road no ending?<br \/>\nthis grey-green conifer forest\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 gaze ice-cold<br \/>\nwhy has it only left rancid meaning the same as the pale sun?<br \/>\ncharming Katya\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Natasha\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 shrapnel sticking to their chests<br \/>\nlike new-picked blood mushrooms<br \/>\nis this the homecoming you were all waiting for?<br \/>\na bird flushed into flight from someone else\u2019s hometown<br \/>\nwas it granted the power to appear in your dreams?<br \/>\nbig-eyed skulls gaze straight at bombed-out streets<br \/>\nonly one question\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 why destroy all this?<br \/>\nhow much longer must this downhill ladder go\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 till it arrives at<br \/>\nthe terror of children\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a vacuum like a fireball exploding<br \/>\nhanging deep in the heart\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 could the world have been blinded by fire long ago?<\/p>\n<p>that tunnel in a mother\u2019s body<br \/>\nleads to chains\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 leads to lying<br \/>\na vast grand piano smashed to pieces every day<br \/>\nocean waves slap\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 human needlegrass shivers in the wind<br \/>\nmother\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the humblest word\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the filthiest word<br \/>\nleads to layers of bloodstain strata<br \/>\nand another dumbstruck morning<br \/>\nwatching her locked on a butchered mother-tongue<br \/>\nwatching us locked in the bomb shelter of shame<br \/>\nthe same tattered shirts and crawling on the ground\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0scrape away human bubbles<br \/>\nthe umbilical tunnel lets us witness a road under guard<br \/>\ndug into our bodies\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 corpses folded onto corpses<br \/>\nforever empty\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 oh listen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the wind\u2019s wail has no history<br \/>\na species that can\u2019t save mothers doesn\u2019t even deserve doomsday<\/p>\n<p>but this really is doomsday<br \/>\na maggot wears countless shades of grey\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 shrivelled names<br \/>\non every stone squat hordes of refugee ghosts<br \/>\nthis is spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the worst bloodstained news sprouts faster than green leaves<br \/>\nbloodstains cover over bloodstains\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 our dried-up surfaces<br \/>\nalmost equal to fictions\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a loss before our very eyes<br \/>\nthe phantoms of home scatter and vanish faster than tear-filled eyes<br \/>\na mother\u2019s used-up vagina\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 must still go on being used up<br \/>\ndraw a planet\u2019s orbit the non-distance between death and death<br \/>\na never-past March asks\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 is there truly a way back?<br \/>\nSpring\u2019s face that leaves behind some enchantment\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 being clearly and clearly stroked<br \/>\nlike a false emblem<\/p>\n<p>a crime\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 can\u2019t remember the beginning but only the weight of shadows<br \/>\nfills in none of Death Row but only human-shaped shell holes<br \/>\nstops at the shape of a sleeper left by a deserted road<br \/>\nthe dirty hand on the red button lightly twists the stamen of destruction<br \/>\ntwirls the topic on the dinner table\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 glasses and plates daintily jingle<br \/>\ncorpselike tongues licking child-charring fires<br \/>\ntimidity so tasty\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 saves your body<br \/>\nmakes it quietly and softly putrify\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 saves your silence<br \/>\nexplosively chokes your lungs\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 saves a life seeping away each second<br \/>\nit isn\u2019t anything at all\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 but crime itself<br \/>\nstaring at the madness of a branch of peach blossom\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 like madness<br \/>\ncreated by fingers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 March collapsing\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 March soaked in sweat<br \/>\nseeing us tied to a ghost\u2019s bed\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 falling further than ghosts into<br \/>\nnowhere\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 no word more shameless than innocence<br \/>\nno little hand stretching from the soil that hasn\u2019t gripped my body odor<br \/>\nno iron umbilical cord that hasn\u2019t pulled out a bone-grey river<br \/>\nit knows no other future\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 but disappearance itself<br \/>\ndisappearing in the shocking sight of a branch of peach blossom<br \/>\nbeauty layer on layer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 palms all sticky with farewell train windows<br \/>\na whistle blows everything away<\/p>\n<p>this is an unwritable poem\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 an impossible poem<br \/>\nthere is no one in this poem\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 all that\u2019s left is everyone<br \/>\nfacing the mirror of crime\u00a0\u00a0 the mirror of evil<br \/>\nLi Shangyin\u2019s tears fall independently of ours<br \/>\nwho is who\u2019s counterfeit\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the illusion cursing in the mirror<br \/>\nrecognize the only division is real\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0shattered on a reef<br \/>\nmended in thick fog\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 feeble echoes<br \/>\nwiped and wiped away again\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 from white snow to peach blossom\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 hear<br \/>\npoetry reciting with no heart\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a history arises from an empty shell<br \/>\npainlessly walks out of itself<\/p>\n<p>we have always lived like this<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_25894\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25894\" style=\"width: 617px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloodaxebooks.com\/ecs\/product\/a-tower-built-downwards-1315\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-25894\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/A-Tower-Built-Downward-cover-the-markaz-review.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"617\" height=\"960\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-25894\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yang Lian&#8217;s <em>A Tower Built Downwards<\/em> is published by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloodaxebooks.com\/ecs\/product\/a-tower-built-downwards-1315\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bloodaxe Books<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4>Root<\/h4>\n<p><em>Reflections on the life of a work of art<br \/>\n<\/em>(<em>In response to Ai Weiwei<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>1<\/p>\n<p>is this fate?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 uprooted\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 exposed\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 sun-blasted\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 charred<br \/>\nforged into iron\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 iron that day and night growls low<\/p>\n<p>creases flow backwards\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 skeletons shed from<br \/>\nthe figure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 clutch an invisible body<\/p>\n<p>the starting point is grotesque\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 those fingers drag you down<br \/>\ntrack a set of bronze bells\u2019 droning hum stuck to the dead<\/p>\n<p>carved from underground to above ground\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 wooden labia<br \/>\nkeep on cracking open\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ghosts hang back at the wooden womb\u2019s neck<\/p>\n<p>the end point is grotesque\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 look back then see<br \/>\nfalse seasons\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 false petals<\/p>\n<p>false reincarnation\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 carrying a point of green on a wooden fingertip<br \/>\nstanding tall enough then see\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ruin is once only<\/p>\n<p>those internal organs\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 this heap of flesh-pink rusting stones<br \/>\ncollected\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 pried open\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 poked in\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 tightly embedded<\/p>\n<p>a hand pushes the bells\u2019 droning hum\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 your karma<br \/>\nis here\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 sunk in the rare flower of death<\/p>\n<p>root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 recorded noise of collapse everywhere on its body<br \/>\nthere is no creation myth\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 your last day of life<\/p>\n<p>is here\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 wearing a million gold-colored lifejackets<br \/>\nfacing the sky to fall into the always bottomless seabed<\/p>\n<p>2<\/p>\n<p>touch yourself and know\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the root is in your body<br \/>\nthe room a forest\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 dead tree after dead tree<br \/>\nall say\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 pain is a luxury<br \/>\nthe endless exhibition hall hangs on the hook of the sky<br \/>\nwood at flood tide\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 slapping\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 to love pain is an ability<br \/>\nthe rippling blue at your side also retells a hole that will choke you<br \/>\nroot in your body\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and your dried-up desire<br \/>\ndecorating the ocean\u2019s arabesques wall to wall<br \/>\nthe end is everywhere\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the drowned are between ends<br \/>\ndrifting grotesquely\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the starting point has locked up the finish<br \/>\nthe endpoint fishes out a beginning from empty internal organs<br \/>\nsomeone lying on the seabed lies down into the horizon of a bird\u2019s nest<br \/>\nto a dead-again shore still not there\u00a0\u00a0 you don\u2019t need to seek<br \/>\nblack\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the one and only direction of flow that is woodgrain crying for help<br \/>\ndismantled flesh and blood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a million shiny saws hunt birdsong<br \/>\ntree scars and throats\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 wildfire held in masturbating gall<br \/>\non a dry bone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 where is your hometown?<br \/>\nlost and lost again\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 what does shame mean?<br \/>\nyou hug a unique history of leaking\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the empty sea merely heaves billows<br \/>\nthe empty room\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 emptier once it has caught a man\u2019s shadow<br \/>\nendlessly drifting down like a falling leaf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 hieroglyph of the dead<br \/>\nwrite once\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 invent once<br \/>\ninvention\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 then sinks into unmoving remorse<br \/>\nthe root doesn\u2019t need to look for me\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 this seabed comes looking for you<br \/>\na wooden whirlpool installs the water\u2019s depth of someone who stabs sight<br \/>\ndried out aesthetic reproduces as it bares its teeth\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 your desert likenesses<br \/>\nstep in single file into blue brine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 shining white draws near lips<br \/>\nsmelling a perfume that there\u2019s no time can change<br \/>\nis this fate?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 you are ruined to become a poem<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>February 5, 2020<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chinese poet in exile Yang Lian shares with TMR his poems &#8220;Researching Evil&#8221; and &#8220;Root.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":368,"featured_media":25898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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