Empty Chairs Research Articles

Boundary-making between mainstream and special education. A posthuman ethnographic investigation of materialities of schooling and Danish teachers’ imaginaries and practices around ‘middle forms’

ABSTRACT This article explores production of divisions and belonging between mainstream and special education needs students in Danish primary education. The article analyses the boundary-making practices produced by teachers and materialities of schooling between mainstream education students and those with mild to moderate special needs whose schooling is divided between the mainstream classroom and special provisions within the walls of the mainstream school. The article is based on ethnographical fieldwork in two Danish public schools with teachers from 4th to 6th grade in mainstream education. Using artefacts such as empty chairs, missing names, and lavatories for specific groups of students, the analysis shows how nonhuman mundane materialities of the school and classroom do performative work in enacting divisions and belonging in mainstream education. Besides the focus on materialities, teachers’ statements on students with special needs offers insights into teachers’ imaginaries and perspectives on their responsibilities (or lack thereof) concerning students with special needs. Despite intentions to enhance opportunities for students with special needs to participate in mainstream classroom activities, this study’s main findings suggest a strong segregation between the two groups and that teachers and materialities are reinforcing and reproducing this segregation through artefacts, (dis)placements, counterproductive imaginaries, and discursive statements.

Empty chairs at the dinner table: Black-white disparities in exposure to household member deaths

As a result of Black–White inequities in life expectancy, recent research has indicated that Black individuals are disproportionately exposed to the deaths of multiple family members compared to White individuals. Black individuals are also more likely to live in coresident households—that is, households that extend beyond the nuclear family. However, it is unclear the degree to which this population may be disproportionately exposed to the loss of deaths marked by the geographic closeness of the household. In this study, I use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to provide the first nationally representative estimates of Black-White disparities in exposure to household member deaths. I find that Black people are significantly more likely than White individuals to have experienced the death of a household member. Based on these findings, I argue the dual inequities of racial disparities in life expectancy and racial disparities in coresidence are an overlooked, salient source of racial disparities in exposure to death. By illuminating a broader range of network sources that contribute to racial inequities in exposure to death, this study sets forth a new conceptual unit of analysis—that of the household—to investigate the intergenerational reproduction of inequality in health and socioeconomic status due to exposure to death.

Don’t Move! Choreography as a Means of Arranging Protest in Times of Curfew

This article investigates protesting when there are restrictions on public assembly. In spring 2020, social movements (partly unwittingly) used choreographic means in order to deal with the prohibition of public gatherings, imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Examples in Tel Aviv (Black Flag protest, 19 April) and the campaign Empty Chairs in Germany (24 April) have one prominent characteristic in common: The lack of expansive spatial movement. The article delineates the ways in which these protests aimed to make their voices heard: Choreographic arrangements of physically distanced bodies were assigned on site to produce highly affective images for social media, thus shifting the focus of the protests’ visibility into the online public sphere. In addition, the different situations of vulnerable bodies calling to action are of interest: Given the pandemic times, the concept of protection takes precedence.

Don't Move! Choreography as a Means of Arranging Protest in Times of Curfew

Abstract: This article investigates protesting when there are restrictions on public assembly. In spring 2020, social movements (partly unwittingly) used choreographic means in order to deal with the prohibition of public gatherings, imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Examples in Tel Aviv ( Black Flag protest, 19 April) and the campaign Empty Chairs in Germany (24 April) have one prominent characteristic in common: The lack of expansive spatial movement. The article delineates the ways in which these protests aimed to make their voices heard: Choreographic arrangements of physically distanced bodies were assigned on site to produce highly affective images for social media, thus shifting the focus of the protests' visibility into the online public sphere. In addition, the different situations of vulnerable bodies calling to action are of interest: Given the pandemic times, the concept of protection takes precedence.

Class Room Ambience Measurement using Ai Technique

The word SMART is popular in everyday activities which is meant for city, road, vehicles and home through the integration of IOT (Internet of Things) and ICT (Information and Communication Technology). It is possible by using the above, our everyday activities can be monitored and recorded using advanced devices in our work environment. It is suggested to have such tools in the education institutes to have better classroom and lab infrastructure for teaching and learning environments. Now a day’s many technologies exist and our aim is to integrate all the existing and new technologies to develop an embedded system application to make the classroom to be more smart and automated. In this context we will study how to design and develop the class room ambience measurement using AI technique. The machine is so smart by identifying the empty chairs and calling individual persons and occupy the place near to others so that the fan, light usage can me minimum which is possible through intelligent device and its prototype model is proposed here.

A Poem by Heart

A Poem by Heart

Our Town, Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane, Australia

<i>Our Town</i>, Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane, Australia

Mark Stockman, the knight of plasmonics

When the nanophotonics research community finally gets back to in-person conferences, the rooms will have empty chairs on the first row. The chairs will be reserved for Professor Mark I. Stockman.

A study of ionesco's hunger and thirst

Life is a constant struggle between the self and its surroundings, between the material and spiritual planes. The plays of Ionesco are packed with the burlesque and grotesque; the empty chairs in the play The Chairs; the coffee cups in the Victims of Duty, the pieces of furniture in The New Tenant or the eggs in The Future are some of the examples of the comedy of proliferation of Ionesco. Ionesco evolved his own subtle dramatic language with a mission to deform it; the normal speech is replaced by incongruous banalities. His plays are performed as pure pantomime. For instance, his play Exit the King was written in the form of a ballet in the beginning. Ionesco's plays reveal a strong cinematic influence. Ionesco's anti plays are written to explore the identity of the individuals who are confronted with the baffling metaphysical problems of existence. This paper is going to be an intense study of Ionesco's Victims of Duty that gives an overall idea that the protagonist of the play is suffering not because of outer world but because he is in conflict within his own self.

"Empty Chairs at Empty Tables": Disenfranchisement by Association.

The rise in research publications over the last few decades about disenfranchised grief has deepened our understanding of this field. Importantly, it raises awareness and validates human experiences of bereavement, which are often socially ignored, muted, and stigmatized. However, while researchers in the field actively engage in the task of "enfranchisement," as they present their work at scientific conferences, they might experience what we term disenfranchisement by association in the academic sphere. Based on our own experience, this article will demonstrate the parallel pathways between disenfranchisement of bereaved individuals and disenfranchisement of disenfranchised grief researchers, as it emerges in three main expressions of disenfranchisement: reluctance to listen, shame and guilt inflicting, and demand for euphemism. A conclusive note on how to address this kind of disenfranchisement is suggested.

Barcelona, 1978–1980

Barcelona, 1978–1980 Patrick Kehoe (bio) My Barcelona is a kind of pre-lapsarian one in my own eyes, a pre-lapsarian, pre-budget flight city. In 1980 there occurred the "lapse" of sorts—or should that be the lapse "out of sorts"?—when I finally left the city after two years. Thus concluded a shiftless, insecure period of living with little money, in flats and small hotels. I was obliged to lodge too far from the city at one point early on, feeling removed from the action in the small town of Sant Cugat. Situated due northwest of the teeming city, Sant Cugat was a provincial town, about an hour's train ride from Barcelona. The place was evolving into the much bigger dormitory town it would eventually be in years to come. There was nothing there for a young Irishman, interested in craic, distraction, or finding women who might be "asked out," as the phrase of the times had it. June 1980 saw the end of the English classes I taught sometimes early in the morning, in the long stretches of the afternoon, or late at night. It had been an erratic pattern, shoehorned around people's working lives or children's afterschool hours. I still think of the underground trains that got me around, that dusty, trapped smell in the air when you stepped down the stairs in Fontana, Hospitalet, or Entenza. The carriages were not the soundless, clean-fuel trains of today. Where are the working men in the short-sleeved shirts reeking of garlic and black tobacco, hanging from the handrail, exuding decent sweat? Their places have been taken by tourists and visitors from every country you could imagine. To discount that pre-lapsarian theme a bit, one, of course, could not compare my Barcelona experience to Eden. However, memory and imagination are great mood enhancers. There was, in any case, something of Eden about the city anyway, and a sense of banishment, anguish, and strangeness when it was time to go. I was going back to Ireland; I was back where I started with what I thought at the time was little to show for it. A new poem of mine, which features in the current edition of Cyphers magazine, is simply called "Banishment." I left the city voluntarily, sure, but I sometimes feel that the city banished me for reasons that need not be gone into. Banishment or not—and the usage has featured in previous poems, like a thorn—the city has stayed in my mind, coming and going faithfully, obsessively. [End Page 151] Its presence has, for a decade or more of recent poetry writing, been like a vast net. I have been seeking memory fish that have circulated in the net of my imagination, captured in the mesh of the poems. I remember weekend nights on the town in a city that, despite its iconoclastic air of kicking against the post-Francoist traces, seemed provincial. At that period, the tourists generally came only between May and October. During the other months, the city seemed to draw in and recover its jaunty, brazen spirit. I remember in particular walking down Calle Pelayo one weekend night in spring, feeling an air of anticipation, a sense of heat in the pavement slabs, the sultry evening opening out, the prospect of company further on. Making my way down the Ramblas, to eventually cut off into a side street and meet a few friends at one of the bars, Paraguas or El Portalón. To proceed on later maybe to other nightspots, the nightclub Celeste, those evenings almost erased now, just the vaguest glimmer of being young and active and busy-minded. My poems try to celebrate where we stood, laughed, drank, sang. Or they attempt to fill the gaps and seat us few Irishmen again on empty benches or chairs. None of us were writers; I had given up poetry during that period, although I tried to learn flamenco guitar at a music school. I still have that lightweight guitar, smelling hopefully still of rosewood and cedar. I recall my teacher Luis Verdú, who came originally from Córdoba in Andalucia. Luis, a kindly...

Mountain Spring, and: Hometown Wind

Mountain Spring, and: Hometown Wind Jidi Majia (bio) Translated by Tony Barnstone (bio) and Ming Di (bio) mountain spring Old mother never went back to our hometown.She often spoke to us as if in dream:In this highland where the buckwheat grows,a person misses bracing spring water. No wonder she would sit alone at the window,wondering from what place a bird had flown.She would watch a cloud for a long timeuntil it disappeared where the wind blew. No one can change life's background color:A fireplace hisses under the tile roofand courtyard roosters crow constantly. In fact, a person can have simple needsthat are more difficult than touching sky.She can't drink the heart-water of that spring. [End Page 51] hometown wind Mother often thinks of wind from home.When this happens, she will sketch the wind.No wonder in the epics of our tribeeternal wind is planted in stone words. Wind from the abysmal universepasses through the void of wheat on earth.Wind is the gate between our life and death.Who can predict its future and direction? Mother said, If you can know the languageof wind, you'll know why our Yi people's fluteproduces such naively cryptic sound. The wind still blows and I am a wind listener.Today I start to get it, vaguely.Wind is the only immortality. [End Page 52] Jidi Majia Jidi Majia 吉狄马加 is a Yi-Nuosu poet, born in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in 1961. He came to national attention when his book Song of My First Love won the Third China National Poetry Prize, in 1988. His work has been translated into over twenty languages and published in over thirty countries. His most recent international awards include the Bucharest Poetry Prize (2017) and the Ianicius Prize of Poland (2017). Tony Barnstone Tony Barnstone is a professor of English and environmental studies at Whittier College. A prolific poet, author, essayist, and literary translator, he is the author of twenty books. His latest poetry book is Pulp Sonnets (2015). His books of co-translation include Mother Is a Bird: Sonnets by a Yi Poet (2017), River Merchant's Wife by Ming Di (2012), Chinese Erotic Poems (2007), The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry (2005), and Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry (1993). Among his honors are fellowships from the NEA, the NEH, and the California Arts Council. He has won the Grand Prize of the Strokestown International Poetry Festival, the Pushcart Prize, the Pablo Neruda Prize, and the John Ciardi Prize. Ming Di Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018). Copyright © 2019 University of Hawaiʿi Press

The Man Who Cuts Firewood for the Winter

The Man Who Cuts Firewood for the Winter Wang Jiaxin (bio) Translated by Ming Di (bio) and Frank Stewart (bio) The man who cuts firewood for the winterbrings more life to usthan the low-lying sun.The man who cuts firewood for the winteris quick and precise with his hands—the way he cuts wood astonishes me. As the cold weather approaches,the man who cuts firewoodis more patient than the season over his shoulder.He is calm and focused —then the ax comes down. Even morethan a revolution, it prevents mefrom writing. I look out and see him in the yardas he straightens up, thendeparts.I know he can survive the winter,more than the winter. [End Page 122] Wang Jiaxin Wang Jiaxin 王家新 was born in Danjiangkou, Hubei province, in 1957. His first collection of poems in English is Darkening Mirror: New and Selected Poems (2016). He is currently a professor of literature at Renmin University in Beijing. Ming Di Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018). Frank Stewart Frank Stewart is a recipient of the Whiting Writers Award. His edited books include The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry (2004). His translations, with Michelle Yeh, are included in Hawk of the Mind: Collected Poems of Yang Mu (2018). He has also translated I, Snow Leopard by Jidi Majia (2016); other translations have appeared in Chinese Poetry Today, World Literature Today, and Harvard Review On-line: "Omniglots." Copyright © 2019 University of Hawaiʿi Press

The Shape of the Ocean

The Shape of the Ocean Jiang Hao (bio) Translated by Ming Di (bio) and Frank Stewart (bio) When you ask me what the ocean's shape is likeI should bring you two sacks full of sea water.They are the ocean's shape, like two eyes,or what the ocean seems like because of a pair of eyes.You caress them, as though dabbing awaytwo scalding tears, and tearsare also the ocean's shape, their transparencyarising from identical souls.Leaning the sacks togetherdoes not make the oceans wider. From their freshness,two not-fish are about to emerge.You sprinkle water on the sand-like flour.Bread is an ocean's shape.Before you slice it with the blade of a sailit is already going away, like a boat from a harbor. The plastic bagslying flat on the table are an ocean's shape,with their tides ebbing from the beaches.When an actual tide ebbs,the salt that remains is the ocean's shape.You don't believe me? I should bring you a sackof sea water and a sack of sand, which are the shapes of the ocean.You say yes, then no; then not-yes,not-no. Go and look at yourself,you are also an ocean's shape, even though you say,"I am only the shape of myself." [End Page 48] Jiang Hao Jiang Hao 蒋浩 was born in Sichuan province in 1971. His books include a volume of essays and four poetry collections. His first book, Rhetorics (2005), won the Tendency Literature Award that year. He lives on Hainan Island. Ming Di Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018). Frank Stewart Frank Stewart is a recipient of the Whiting Writers Award. His edited books include The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry (2004). His translations, with Michelle Yeh, are included in Hawk of the Mind: Collected Poems of Yang Mu (2018). He has also translated I, Snow Leopard by Jidi Majia (2016); other translations have appeared in Chinese Poetry Today, World Literature Today, and Harvard Review On-line: "Omniglots." Copyright © 2019 University of Hawaiʿi Press

Walking in the Woods, and: Ode to Shennongjia Firs

Walking in the Woods, and: Ode to Shennongjia Firs Huang Bin (bio) Translated by Ming Di (bio) and Kerry Shawn Keys (bio) walking in the woods Walking in the woods in the summer, I seetrees flourishing in a complicated way.Uplifting, they are positive, thriving, their interiorgrows like human ambitions and swelling desires.I think of the word 木 mu, simple and quiet,born to be silent, born in the deep fall,its first appearance stunning. Shocking.木 mu of four seasons slows down to acquire a 木 image.Look at its shape with branches and a trunk, createdin more than a few days, or a few weeks.A simple beauty. A holistic miracle. A concrete abstract.木 lives in the woods, in nature, in the human heart,immortal in a mortal world.木 becomes paper, and paper's full of the words 木.How does 木 in words meet 木 in the woods? How? [End Page 39] ode to shennongjia firs In the whiteness of early February, fog spreadsaround the snow dictatorship of Shennongjia Mountains.Along the shady streams are firs forty meters high,each a green body, white beard and hair.Each tree stands alone, far away from the others,in its own coldness and solitude.They like to look at each otherfrom a distance. They are tall and straight,looking down, and looking over the others.Their needles, thick and straight, look up in V-shape lines.In June, male and female cones will blossom,and mature in October. But sometimes they are shyin showing their hearts. They wait two years to grow fruit.What touches me most is how they die.In Shennongjia Mountains, the firs live a hundred andeighty years, then they begin to die—first they wither from the top, then down and down in segments.Within a few years, they've gone over their lives again,from top to bottom.When the dying reaches their roots, they fall intactin a big roar. Each tree still holds its shape,lying down all in one body.Years later, they will still look like trees and this is the mostthorough death of a plant, perhaps. They possessthe art of dying.Snow or wind will not wake them again.If you step on one, you will feel likeyou are losing your feet in mud—their entire bodies have turned into earth,into the living shape of firs. [End Page 40] Huang Bin Huang Bin 黄斌 was born in Chibi (Red Cliff), in southeastern Hubei province, in 1968. He won first place in the national poetry competition in 1994. His other honors include the ninth Qu Yuan Literary and Art Award. He studied journalism at Wuhan University and now works for the Hubei Daily. Ming Di Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018). Kerry Shawn Keys Kerry Shawn Keys has published nearly fifty books, including poetry, plays, fiction, and children's literature. He is the recipient of NEA and Poetry Society of America awards, and translation awards from the Lithuanian Writers' Union. A member of International PEN, he is the Republic of Užupis' World Poetry ambassador. Copyright © 2019 University of Hawaiʿi Press

Call Her Suoma

Call Her Suoma Jike Bu (bio) Translated by Ming Di (bio) Call her Suoma*in the name of love we sharein the last, this, and next life.Love her—love her breathtaking color from blooming,the traces she leftin the wind the rain the scorching sun.Nothing disdains her beauty: she is purelike ice jadebut she is not just pretty and frail.Her sonorous voice comes from the air,the revolving stream, the soil.Love her.And embrace her barren bodylike heaven and earthand everything that grows on earthwith natural birth and deathin the world even though the worlddoesn't care where the wind blows,where you're from what you are or where you're going.She has her own garden, her old dreamand her clearly sounding name—Call her Suoma out loudlike calling yourself. [End Page 53] Jike Bu Jike Bu 吉克·布 (Jike Ayibujin) was born and grew up in Xichang, Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan province, in 1986. She was the first Yi woman awarded a master's degree in art. She began publishing poems while in college and has become known as one of the best Yi poets of the younger generation. Ming Di Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018). Footnotes * Yi name of azalea flower; also the most common name for women in the Yi region. Copyright © 2019 University of Hawaiʿi Press

Chessboard, and: Carpenter, and: A Taoist Priest on Mount Kongtong

Chessboard, and: Carpenter, and: A Taoist Priest on Mount Kongtong Shen Haobo (bio) Translated by Ming Di (bio) and Liang Yujing (bio) chessboard Flying back to BeijingI look out—a thin layer of whitenessover the city. Snow.A chessboard.But who is playing chesswith me? Nobody, only meand the bloody setting sun—watching each otheracross the snowboard. carpenter The carpenter,stripped to his waist,is striving to shape a block of woodwith his hand plane.Shavingssurge up like sprays,curly and soft,giving off the scent of wood.Swimming among wood,he stretches out his armsand draws them back. [End Page 98] a taoist priest on mount kongtong With great effort,I climbed to the mountaintop.There was a Taoist temple,named Palace of the Jade Emperor.At its front doorsat an old Taoist prieststriking the chime stonefor the pilgrims.With a mallet in his left handfor hitting the stone,he held an apple in his right hand.He struck the stone,then gave his apple a bite,struck again,then bit again.When hitting the stone,he looked listless.When he bit the apple,his eyes shone. [End Page 99] Shen Haobo Shen Haobo 沈浩波 was born in Jiangsu province in 1976. He is a major advocate of the Lower Body poetry movement, which attempts to overcome the taboos against explicit content in poetry. His first poetry collection, Great Evil in the Heart (2004), was banned. His most recent collection is Command Me to Be Silent. He is the founder of Xiron, a successful independent publishing house in Beijing. Ming Di Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018). Liang Yujing Liang Yujing grew up in China and is a doctral candidate at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the Chinese translator of Best New Zealand Poems 2014 and the English translator of Zero Distance: New Poetry from China. Copyright © 2019 University of Hawaiʿi Press

Snow in Ulan Bator

Snow in Ulan Bator Jiang Tao (bio) Translated by Tony Barnstone (bio) and Ming Di (bio) Monday morning I got up early, thinking I was home,scrounged a drink of water in the bathroom,turned my socks inside out and slipped them onas if what happened last night was nothing. But it's snowing outside. After only one nightthe grassland retreats in haste,exposing a great cluster of Japanese carssinking into bottomless mud. This I'm actually already familiar withIt's been this way for more than a century, from Tokyo to Beijing,and now again here.Straight-nosed wide-mouthed commuters, their faces exhausted from stuffing themselveswith potatoes cooked in the freezing wind,are going to work now, shotguns on their shouldersreplaced by a forest of black umbrellas. But I'm still in my underwear,switching quickly between BBC and CNN.The white-haired anchorman always looked arrogant,but now he speaks proletarian English. I'm skeptical, understanding half of what he says.I guess that a great shift might come—but not local mountains becoming golden hillsnor Pyongyang turning into Beijing. [End Page 49] I sense that what was loomingis coming, so I decide to get dressed, go downstairsand join the crowded Far East poetry festivaland during my reading throw in some foreign words like "Black Monday" and stuff like that,implying: this good snow, isn't it just in time? [End Page 50] Jiang Tao Jiang Hao 蒋浩 was born in Sichuan province in 1971. His books include a volume of essays and four poetry collections. His first book, Rhetorics (2005), won the Tendency Literature Award that year. He lives on Hainan Island. Tony Barnstone Tony Barnstone is a professor of English and environmental studies at Whittier College. A prolific poet, author, essayist, and literary translator, he is the author of twenty books. His latest poetry book is Pulp Sonnets (2015). His books of co-translation include Mother Is a Bird: Sonnets by a Yi Poet (2017), River Merchant's Wife by Ming Di (2012), Chinese Erotic Poems (2007), The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry (2005), and Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry (1993). Among his honors are fellowships from the NEA, the NEH, and the California Arts Council. He has won the Grand Prize of the Strokestown International Poetry Festival, the Pushcart Prize, the Pablo Neruda Prize, and the John Ciardi Prize. Ming Di Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018). Copyright © 2019 University of Hawaiʿi Press

Rain or Fish, and: Water Bird

Rain or Fish, and: Water Bird Gao Xing (bio) Translated by Ming Di (bio), Frank Stewart (bio), and Liang Yujing (bio) rain or fish Rain (yu) and fish (yu) are homonyms in Chinese but have different tones. Suddenly lightningflashes and the rainis transformed into fish, each transparent bluefalling in a torrentacross the earth Below,some of the people are startled and panic,they cower here and there and cover their heads.Others are ecstatic and opentheir welcoming arms. I blink my eyes and cry aloud:Look, the sky is having a dream. [End Page 33] water bird Something streaks across the skyplunges into the water and rises—was it merely the sky's shadow? The bird paddles along,slaps at the surface, then stops.What shall I do? It hesitates as ifconsidering its options:turn around, dive under, or fly away—three possibilities to choose from,three paths, three directions. The bird turns back,Then returns, and suddenly dives as ifovercoming some obstacle in its path.It surfaces, and then rises into the airin the direction of the horizon.The bird is certain that it can haveall three choices, as if they were all one. Only such a bird knows the meaning of freedom.But it does not speak. The bird has no need at all to speak of freedom. [End Page 34] Gao Xing Gao Xing 高兴 was born in Jiangsu province in 1963 and graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. In addition to writing poems and essays, he has translated Milan Kundera, Ismail Kadare, Tomaz Salamun, and others into Chinese. He is the deputy editor-in-chief of the Chinese journal World Literature. Ming Di Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018). Frank Stewart Frank Stewart is a recipient of the Whiting Writers Award. His edited books include The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry (2004). His translations, with Michelle Yeh, are included in Hawk of the Mind: Collected Poems of Yang Mu (2018). He has also translated I, Snow Leopard by Jidi Majia (2016); other translations have appeared in Chinese Poetry Today, World Literature Today, and Harvard Review On-line: "Omniglots." Liang Yujing Liang Yujing grew up in China and is a doctral candidate at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the Chinese translator of Best New Zealand Poems 2014 and the English translator of Zero Distance: New Poetry from China. Copyright © 2019 University of Hawaiʿi Press

Food Is Running Out

Food Is Running Out Xiao Shui (bio) Translated by Ming Di (bio) Food is running outI have to tell youwhat we are facingCorn, wheat, potatoesand rice, all these we live onbut never produce are gone. Hunger comeslike the fireworks you've never seenHunger is the food tomorrow gives us todayBut before it's completely darkand the sun not set, the mountains are already blackDon't say this is the last banquetwhere you need to be dressed upDon't say the knives and forks and platesare just being manufacturedBefore the moon has come out, wehave an opportunity to be opportunistsWe can step into the autumn rice fieldsin the South, or the stormsThere will always be a way to the distant warehouseThere will always be robbers and a furious judgeThere will always be coffins and verses of praiseThere will always be rice when we wake up from sleepin the properties stolen by the mousein the lullabies the peasants are no longer singingin the hands of the beggars, between their fingersThe rice will fly up with the ghosts of our ancestors, andland in a paddy field of moist wordsAll night, in the darknesssurrounded by fatigue, I wait [End Page 138] for one word after another to sproutBefore they open up, flowering, growing intogreat lines on Du Fu's mustaches,or clear moonlight in Li Bai's glass—I pick them up and quickly stuff them into my mouthFood is running outI stretch out my hands and turn to TimeI know I'm more hungry than the rice granaryand more fatigued—will you cry for me [End Page 139] Xiao Shui Xiao Shui 肖水 was born in Chenzhou, Hunan province, in 1980. He has a degree in law and Chinese literature from Fudan University. He lives and works in Shanghai. His books include Lost and Found, Chinese Class, and Chinese Mugwort: New Jueju Poetry. Ming Di Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018). Copyright © 2019 University of Hawaiʿi Press