Nick Admussen has received a 2017 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for his forthcoming translation of Floral Mutter (Zephyr Press), the selected poems of Ya Shi 哑石, which PEN describes as a “master of disjunctive imagery.”

Ya Shi brings language to the precipice of the absurd and holds it over the abyss for all to see. Admussen’s translations, which are perfectly balanced and polished, recreate the source poems for us in a language the judges described as “haunting.” In an age when contemporary Chinese poetry is profoundly influenced by its eastern urban centers, Ya Shi stands out as an inimitable voice from the interior.

To demonstrate, they cite:

In the summer           slit open a plump, cool lotus root
taste the sweet juice frothing up from its orifices.
On the rooftop           a dense and scorching pressure crowds inward
but… it’s vague and speechless like the long wind.
The great many cruelties of life have gone ignored for ages.
— and what is loathsome is more or less similar
for all that is vulgar, keep strumming on your shiny oddity!

Click here for the full list of grantees.