Yang Yang 阳飏

• My Connection to Three Cities  |  与我生命相关的三座城市
• ....Tianjin: My Ancestral Home  |  天津：籍贯之城
• ....Beijing: My Birthplace  |  北京：出生之城
• ....Lanzhou: The Growing-Up Years  |  兰州：生长之城
• Beijing Time  |  北京时间

Chen Min 陈敏

• The Place Called Home  |  家 园 (组诗)
• ....Southern Shaanxi  |  陕 南
• ....Tea Town  |  茶 乡
• ....Daughter of Southern Shaanxi  |  陕南女
• ....Old Farmer and Ox Walking Down the Hill  |  走下山坡的老农与牛

Zhang Fanxiu 张凡修

• Painted Vase  |  画 瓶
• Passing Through  |  穿 越
• Last Ear of Corn  |  仅剩一株玉米

Ren Lin 人邻

• Good Night (Excerpts)  |  晚安（组诗，节选）
• ....Good Night  |  晚安
• ....Temple of Bitter Orange  |  臭橘寺 |
• ....Mu Xi’s   |  牧谿的《六个柿子》|
• ....Journey through the Northern Plain  |  华北平原上的行旅
• ....Sunset  |  太阳落下
• ....Big River  |  大河
• ....Fish, Potatoes, Figs, and Spring Water  |  鱼、土豆、无花果和清泉水
• ....Greens for Field Mice  |  菜叶和田鼠

Liu Nian 刘年

• At Qokang Monastery  |  游大昭寺
• Old Flower Tract  |  老花铺
• Moon Over Hongs’ Camp  |  洪家营的月亮
• Letter to My Son, Liu Yunfan  |  写给儿子刘云帆
• The Ruin  |  废墟
• The Yellow River  |  黄河
• Xiaoxiu  |  小秀

WeiWei 围围（傅正洪）

• Sandy Lake  |  沙湖
• The Zoo (Excerpt)  |  动物园 （节选）
• ....Giant Panda  |  大熊猫
• ....Red Mountain Sheep  |  红山羊
• ....Tibetan Antelope  |  藏羚羊

From 21st Century Chinese Poetry, No. 12

• A big place for the emperor—
• a moat for boating, Tiananmen Gate for riding a horse.
• The horse ran away, returning in its place
• was an iron horse, no alfalfa needed.
• At that time, the last emperor was still a kid,
• the clanking train puffed out black smoke,
• dragging a decaying empire with it into the sunset.

— Yang Yang, Tianjin: My Ancestral Home

• Come, pound on my chest, loud and hard, as you would on the mountain,
• and drown out the professor’s tiresome voice,
• his tedious lecture on aesthetics,
• and the quotes such as “Quack! Quack! Cry the fish hawks”.
• Come, sing a song to light up my day;
• send me to the sky with a cheerful tune.
• Yeah, sing a tea-picking song, no need for a cantata,
• and as you smile, your cool eyes turn into two small boats, rock and rock,
• looking at the world, looking at
• me…

— Chen Min, Daughter of Southern Shaanxi

• People fuss about a mosquito’s high whine
• but ignore the buzz of the cicada.
• The deed accomplished by the peculiar vocal chords
• is also called passing through.
• .
• One sleepless man imagines being a tree,
• trunk and limbs ransacked by low hums,
• skin bitten into clusters of bumps
• spreading over his leaves.
• .
• This usually easygoing sleepless man becomes anxious:
• there is no one to testify his passing, through the mystic ––

— Zhang Fanxiu, Passing Through

• The temple’s gate is shut. Behind the closed wooden panels
• lies emptiness, and someone is mumbling to himself:
• Leave me be, alone for a slumber, in this empty house.
• .
• He can’t smell them,
• but imagines there are orange groves nearby
• with rotten oranges drying in the wind,
• and the scent of the monk,
• and the oranges awakened by the wooden fish,
• and the universe that is one and all.
• .
• He secretly laughs at his secret thoughts,
• all very quietly:
• those useless oranges, those most useless monks.
• .
• Most useless monks, he is pleased with the idea—
• yes, useless, but how marvelous.

— Ren Lin, Temple of Bitter Orange

• Those who write about money and palaces can do the same for haystack, too.
• From the top of a haystack, one sees hometown, crows, and decay;
• therefore I will rename the golden evening breeze SORROW.
• .
• And the crow, that is now stretching its wings and breaking its silence,
• I will rename it HOPE.

— Liu Nian, The Ruin

• but I believe
• these are all, in part, religious rites.
• They always drink from the same water,
• are born, and live and die on the same mountain.
• Their ewes come in heat punctually on First of Winter,
• and they mate most resolutely.

• I have never seen the red mountain sheep,
• but I have heard that they fear a lump of iron
• the way people fear the god of the plagues.

— WeiWei, Red Mountain Sheep