Short poems for contemporary world

Reading new short poems by Yan Li, now, and thinking that they are indeed an excellent (won’t say “best”) literary medium for a visually-oriented, multi-media barraged contemporary mind-space.

And with that thought, the recollection that short poems are anything but contemporary. There are of course the “short poems” 短歌 , a genre of Japanese poetry even more condensed than the globally well known haiku. And even in the modern period, the last century, during the ebbs and flows of modernism. Yagi Juichi’s 八木重吉 (1898-1927) poem from early in the twentieth century:

If you lay a plain koto
in this brightness
it will begin playing quietly,
unable to endure autumn’s beauty.
(from ‘A Plain Koto’)
 

Regardless of when or where, the condensation increases the pressure of attention, so that every syllable (even material of the words themselves) come into focus. The experimental of these have been frequent occurrence as well. Taiwan poet Xia Yu’s 夏宇 “Reading” 閱讀, for example:

舌頭上
一隻蟹
On the tongue’s tip
A crab

Yan Li has been composing what he calls ‘poetry gum’ since the early 1990s, and has by this time amassed literally thousands of such short poems. They serve multiple purposes, but for the most part I would say they are occasions to change perspective. As the poetry gum series is alternatively titled: ‘polyhedral mirror’ (otherwise known as a ‘disco ball’) refracting images in ways that we don’t expect, can’t see coming, but are lucid in certain light. Here I offer a few with one of my favorite Yan Li paintings, “Mother and Child”

 
 
无论你是什么样的炸药
语言都能够充当导火线
No matter what kind of explosive you are
Language can serve as the fuse
 
 
理想所搭建的积木之城
在人与人的互动中倒塌出来的形状
就是我们如今生活在其中的城市
A city of wooden blocks is erected by our ideals\
Through give and take they tumble into a certain shape
And this is the metropolis we live in
 
 
人类有打动自己的能力
人类不可能做得比人类更坏
人类是制造科学的一种工具而已
人类必须发出些声音地
从人类的身旁走过去
Humanity is capable of touching itself deeply
Humanity cannot do any worse than humanity
Humanity is just a tool for manufacturing science
Humanity can’t help making sounds
As it walks on past humanity