Abstract
Biographical note on Yang Lian
 
 Yang Lian grew up in Beijing and began to establish his credentials as a poet from 1979. His early collections in China include Ritualisation of the Soul (1985), Desolate Soul (1986), Yellow (1989) and his long poem Yi that was first published under the title Sun and Man (1991). His poetry began to appear in English translations by John Minford, Sean Golden and Alisa Joyce in the Hong Kong translation magazine Renditions (1983 and 1985). He travelled to Australia in 1988, and then to New Zealand in 1989. After the June 4 events in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, he sought and obtained New Zealand citizenship. In 1991 he relocated to London where he now lives. His poems, essays and criticism have been collected in Yang Lian’s Works, 1982–1997 (1998) in two volumes and amounting to over 1000 pages, and in Yang Lian’s New Works, 1998-2002 (2003). Yang Lian’s major collections in English include: Masks and Crocodile (1990), The Dead in Exile (1990) and Yi (2002), translated by Mabel Lee; Non-Person Singular (1996), Where the Sea Stands Still (1999), Notes of a Blissful Ghost (2002), Concentric Circles (2005), translated by Brian Holton; and Unreal City: A Chinese Poet in Auckland (2006), translated by Jacob Edmond and Hilary Chung. Selections of his poems have been translated in over thirty languages, and have enabled him to travel regularly to literary festivals all over the world. In 1999 he won the Flaiano International Prize for Poetry.
Highlights
Trees frozen red in snow as if wearing tattered wind jackets Snow crunches underfoot As night rushes by with newly soled shoes
Touch everything tangible does not exist Yet a malignant cancer deep within grows imperceptibly A pregnant black woman envelops a raped springtime A sea of eyes split tree trunks asunder Swans’ necks arch into stark white underwater traps Fragmenting the world through the cracked compound eye method We all become blind ghostly silhouettes in white snow And exposed to icy winds Suffer the pain of bones sprouting
People living close to wounds detect smells Wounds drenched by rain split exude fragrance
Summary
Translated from the Chinese by Mabel Lee “Winter Garden,” “Grafton Bridge,” “The Game of Lies,” “Dead Poet’s City,” “Cruel Children,” “The Garden This Afternoon,” “Incidents,” “Hospital,” “Dead Land” and “Valley,” from Yang Lian’s Works, 1982–1997: Where the Sea Stands Still (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1998). “At a Right Angle to Paper,” “Harmonica,” “Ten Years,” “Record of Twin Cities,” “Clouds,” and “Taking a Stroll,” from Yang Lian’s New Works, 1998-2002: Notes of a Happy Ghost (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2003). PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies Vol 4, no. PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies Vol 4, no. 1 January 2007 ISSN: 1449-2490 http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/portal
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