Artist's Statement

Translation is a meaningful form of resistance: beyond the necessary literary challenges, the experience of living with the work—during and after the translation process—[it] is a test of harmony between my own poems and the engagement of the other. I think of a poem as a secret about a secret, to paraphrase Diane Arbus. In this sense, the act of translating a poem legitimizes a zone where secrets are mobile, and [are] made more present without being visible.

I don't have a specific writing ritual. The same goes for translation. However, I need to work in a room and alone. It seems possible for me to write poems while translating on the side, but not vice versa. I try to honor the experience as best as the work allows. I listen to music to ease the transition from one to the other. Recently, I indulged myself with various recordings of Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter (1915–1997)—his Bach interpretations strike me as dramatic monologues, staged with and without plot.

The following two translations of contemporary Chinese woman poet Lan Lan, “Man of Few Possessions” and “Lily” are published this spring in Canyon in the Body from Zephyr Press. Born in 1967 in Yantai, Shandong Province, Lan Lan is considered one of today’s most influential Chinese lyrical poets. Also a prolific prose and children’s fiction writer, she resides in Beijing. Last year, The Offending Adam published a chapbook of Lan Lan’s translations in a limited edition. Canyon in the Body will be our first full-length book of translations of Lan Lan in the Anglophone world.