Tag Archives: Chung Kwok Keung

Chinese Poetry in Asymptote

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The new issue of Asymptote is out, with translations of Ya Shi 哑石 by Nick Admussen, plus a special feature on Hong Kong poetry: Tang Siu Wa 鄧小樺, translated by Canaan Morse; Lok Fung 洛楓, translated by Eleanor Goodman; Yau Ching 游靜, with translations by Steve Bradbury and Chenxin Jiang; Eric Lui 呂永佳, translated by Nicholas Wong; Lau Yee-ching 飲江, translated from the Chinese by Emily Jones and Sophie Smith; and Chung Kwok Keung 鍾國強, translated by Emily Jones and Sophie Smith.

From Chenxin Jiang’s translation of Yau Ching’s “Island Country” 島國:

There’s this island
that used to have many languages now they’ve become
one called English
another called Chinese
you’re not allowed to ever use
your own language
if your name is not an English name
the island will give you one

有這麼一個島
本來有很多語言變成
一種叫英文
一種叫中文
你任何時候都不准
用自己的話語
你的名字如果非英文
島會給你一個

The Umbrellas and the Tear Gas

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CURAmag has posted “The Umbrellas and the Tear Gas,” a feature of poems from the Occupy Central movement, now cleared, put together and introduced by Louise Law, with Henry Wei Leung. The poems are by Chung Kwok Keung, translated by Tammy Ho, and Chan Lai Kuen, translated by Amy K. Bell. “The two poems selected here are a reminder of the first days,” Law and Leung write. “They are also an artifact, a document of local voices speaking for themselves in the face of being revised by an official history.”

Metaphor is on strike
and there’s pepper spray to eat,
…hard to say how many peppers were used.
Tear gas tastes just like tear gas.

Click on the image for the poems.

AAWW’s Four Poems for the Umbrella Movement

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Photo by David HillThe Asian American Writers’ Workshop has published four poems on the Occupy Central Umbrella Movement by Hongkong poets Tang Siu Wa, Chung Kwok Keung, Dorothy Tse, and Liu Waitong, as translated by Nicolette Wong, Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, and Amy K. Bell. Edited by Louise Law and introduced by Henry Wei Leung, here’s an excerpt (from Chung Kwok Keung, translated by Ho):

Let’s put silence to a coma in the dark of night
Let’s allow our voice, clear and loud, to be heard at dawn
Occupy, so that it can be put back in place
Sit down, and then stand up, one by one
When our names are called,
Each and every one of us, say: Here.

Click on the image for the full feature.