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SM3809_A5

Code & Creative Writing

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The Colonel by Carolyn Forché: I like the details the author chooses to describe in the poems, like the pistol on the cushion, the gratings on the windows and the cop show on the TV. Before actually seeing the colonel in the poem those details already draw a face of dictator for me: a face of a middle age, a little bit fat but still robust man, there is dark, messy beard, layers of scars, a red, high nose and a pair of black eyes on it. And I also like the metaphor of the ears as a kind of abrupt ending. This piece does well in creating an image of the colonel.
A Story About the Body by Robert Hass: Maybe I have seen so many similar stories, so I kind of already guessed that how it will end when the lady said she had had a mastectomy. But the bowl of dead bee still impressed me. The metaphor of bees and flowers is very (maybe too) common (at least in the Chinese context, we have lots of old references like 招蜂引蝶,蝶戀花,etc. for this metaphor), however, by "fooling" the young men will those disgusting dead bees (which is absurdly relatable since now lots of snack products have packaging like that), the author reinforces the characters: an old, elegant, smart lady without physical attractiveness and a typical (and flat - he is so typical, even a bit stereotypical, we can't see the complexity of him - but it is understandable since the story is super short) shallow young man. But to be honest, if I am the author I would probably stop at the young man saying "sorry I don't think I can do it".
The Bench by Mary Ruefle: This one is much more longer compared with the above ones, and is more philosophical. In my interpretation, the husband is obviously a pragmatist while the wife is more like a romantic. I think the philosophical part of this piece can be obviously related to the One and Three Chairs. But the part about marriage in this piece is interesting for me too, and reminds me of this little game Marriage by Rod Humble.
Firewood Seller by Zhang Jiawen： I tried to found the original Chinese version of it, I found it was in this magazine in 1994 but the online database of the magazine only goes back to 2001 :( (and the publisher doesn't even have a website or email!). I love the ending of the wood seller disappointedly bring the wood back to the mountains. The disappointment, on one hand, is the disappointment of the seller that there will not be enough money for the son's wedding; on the other hand, is also the disappointment at the city (and maybe the life there) of the author. The description of the scene of the high mountains in which wild kid chops wood is a sudden contrast of the city/town images, and also seems to imply the disappointment of the author.
New Blood, The Baby, The Painter of the Night by James Tate: These poems are very... surrealistic and absurd.
- New Blood gives me a feeling that it happens in one of the South American cities from Márquez's works,somehow.
- Painter of the Night really makes me think of the idea of 空(emptiness, or voidness) in Chan(and Zen): I think the question of what one can draw in the dark is quite similar to the question of what can be derived from 空, and the point to the questions of what is darkness and what is 空; the difference is that at the end of the poem the police said he need to see, but Chan tells us that we can't even tell.
- I think The Bady is the most abstract one in the three, I think it is quite like Waiting For Godot, the baby seems to imply a kind of loop, but to be honest I am generally confused by it.
Postcard 2 by Franz Wright: I don't know why but when I read this piece, Christmas in LA just start playing in my mind 😂. I think this piece is very personal (in fact, there are critiques saying that the author bases his works too much on his (suffering) personal experience), and to be honest it is not super relatable for me who don't share similar life experiences. But I can feel a strong emotion of sadness and helplessness, especially from the last three sentences, which are quite fatalistic.
Proportion Surviving by Renee Gladman: This one is... long. I think this piece is very humorous. By setting this ridiculous crisis, the story expands on both sides of the timeline. It feels a little bit like Steve Chow's nonsense(無釐頭) movies.

Something Else: I want to share two very short pieces by Wang Xiaobo (王小波, a Chinese writer, 1952 - 1997, what is interesting is that he is also a programmer, he wrote his literary works in a Chinese text editor that was written by himself) here, they are in Chinese, the English version is my (not very good) translation.
- 走在寂靜裡，走在天上，而陰莖倒掛下來
  Walking in the silence, walking in the sky, and the penis is pointing to the ground
The first two sentences of the work outline a lonely but relaxed walker, and Wang uses the third sentence to deconstruct beautiful and quiet scenery with the sex organ. Wang uses the imagery (in Chinese we call it 意象) of genitals a lot in his works (which is a breaking thing in the 1980s and 1990s' Mainland). The penis in this piece is a symbol of freedom, and also as a symbol of the frivolous (but in a neutral meaning) attitude. And if we think about that, this sentence is only describing a simple fact, and the fact that it totally changes the aesthetic of the piece brings up something outside the poem.
- 大團的蒲公英浮在街道的河流口，吞吐著柔軟的針一樣的光，我們好像在池塘的水底，從一個月亮走向另一個月亮
  Lots of dandelions floating together at the estuary of the streets, swallowing and spitting, the soft light like needles. Feels like we are in the bottom of a pond, walking from a moon to another.
This piece is describing a couple walking under the road lamps in a heavy fog. The metaphors in this piece, like dandelions, moon, and people walking underwater are brilliant.

Wang is not a "poet" in the traditional sense, or at least, he did not publish any collection of his poems. His poems are spread in his novels. But the poems from a novelist sometimes are more interesting.

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Original: The Painter of the Night by James Tate The Monks A forum for Dharma was set up by a prestigious local gentry who devoted himself to Buddhism. Lots of masters of Chan were invited to lecture and discuss. Two of the monks in plain burlap clothes walked along the walls of the host's yard. It was a quiet, sunny summer afternoon until they walked past a pond and suddenly, a wild duck flew away. The old monk turned to the young monk and asked, "How was the forum?" The young monk looked confused, but still answered, "Good, I learned about Dharma." The old monk smiled, and said, "Good, me too. What did you learn about Dharma?" The young monk said, "The lilypads, the duck, the pond, you and me, are all here, but not here. The blue sky we see, the sound of duck we hear, the scent of lotus we smell, are just illusions, descendants of the emptiness." "Not bad.", the old monk spoke emotionlessly. The young monk, unconvinced, asked the old monk back, "Then what did you know about Dharma?" The old monk stopped walking, smiled and nodded. * Refer to the koan of Bodhidharma(菩提達摩) and Huike(慧可) in WuDengHuiYuan vol.1 (五燈會元卷一)

Authentic

A Peaceful Night Jack on the rock. Glass on the bar. A few sheets of frame struggling in the fireplace, faint smell of maple charcoal rose with temperature. Hideous red bricks rushed in and out from the worn walls' shadow, keeping the same pace of the howling blizzard outside. He said, "What a beautiful night for something to happen: on the corner of the street there must be a frozen bum, he got here by the Midnight Ghost and the last food he got in his poor life is a cold can of baked beans that turned hard enough to smash someone's head; some blocks away there is another poor guy lying on the snow, he was stabbed 27 times and the knife that took his life is dumped in a trash can 10 feet away, oh Jesus his blood is still flowing on the blade, he had screamed so loud in pain but it did not get through the Iron Curtain of the snowstorm..." She lit up the candle, the struggling frame created soft crackling sounds. He continued to say, "in the mansion outside the town a rich fat bald white man was shot right in his face by a Remington Model 870 and the murderer is his illegitimate child he abandoned with the mother 20 years ago; somewhere in the city a drunk man drives his car into the river because he thought it was a wide asphalt road, the police can't send out the helicopter due to the weather so they just announce his death right on the bank..." As the blizzard going on so did he. Fortunately, none of what he said happened that night, people's heads were still on their shoulders and no hand or leg was chopped off from anybody. The only thing that happened is a few garages could not handle the weight of the snow and a few families lost a few grand.
鬼怪故事 | A Weird Story 「六月飛霜，會發生在南半球的墨爾本或者里奧加耶戈斯吧？」，他對她說。電車到站了，叮噹作響，中環的路口，人來人往，呼吸著亞熱帶濕熱的帶著腥味的海風。她下車了，於是又剩下他一個人，在上層甲板伏在前排座椅的椅背上，看著電車又叮叮地擒住鐵軌沿著皇后大道往西邊開去，發呆。呀！他的視線裡突然出現一個婦人，他還未看清婦人的臉，電車急煞，將他的眼睛壓在那椅背上。電車終究是煞車不及，那婦人竟被撞死了。救護和警察悉數到場。離開時，他望向那屍體一眼，那臉龐分明地是她。他又回想日前在電視新聞上看到的臉龐，急急地逃回他位於北角的公寓，襯衫的背後已被汗浸濕了。 "Snow in June, it will happen in Melbourne or Rio Gallegos in the Southern Hemisphere right?", he said to her. Ding-dang Ding-dang, the tram arrived at a stop. Crowds walked across the crossroad in Central, breathing the subtropical hot and humid sea breeze with the fishy smell. She got off the tram, so he was again, alone, lying on the back of the chair in front of him on the upper deck, watching the tram holding the trail going west along the Queen's Road, daydreaming. Ah! A woman suddenly appeared in his sight. he had not seen the face clearly, the tram braked hard, his eyes were pushed against the back of the chair. It was still too late, the woman was hit and die eventually. Ambulance and police came. When he left, he gave a look to the body, the face was clearly her face. He then remembered the face he saw on TV a few days ago. He hurriedly fled back to his apartment in North Point. The back of his shirt was soaked with sweat.

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