Poems by Zhang Zhi, China

The Mirror Image of Ghost City

Everything begins from mystery
And ends in mystery

Now, the Russian ashes
Has filled
The Gulag Archipelago
In the mirror

In 1996
A bookseller of Chongqing
Has photocopied
The Gulag Archipelago
From me

(Published by the Mass Publishing House in 1982

For restricted circulation
With printing number of 1000)
And has paid me
Six thousand yuan as remuneration
(Whether or not it has been published
There is no knowing)

Six thousand yuan twenty-two years ago
Is tantamount to one hundred thousand yuan
Nowadays
Which means
The great Russian writer
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Has presented me one hundred thousand yuan
Unconsciously

Now
I am still buried in the ghost city
Between the lines
Continue to search for the Gulag Archipelago

Coffin lids fill the capital
How many pates are to be cracked?

August 12, 2018

A Leaf Has Kept out All the Winds

Someday
For something
A hot quarrel
Happens
Between my wife
And me

“Don’t quarrel
You are married
And you should love each other”
My three-year son
Who is doodling
Suddenly says

My wife and I
Face to face … wordless
A leaf has kept out all the winds

January 8, 2014

Fraudulent Claims for Compensation

History runs
Under the wheel of history itself
Ouch!
A shriek

Is merely the conjecture by you

                               August 13, 2018

(Translated by ZHANG Zhizhong)

About the Author:

ZHANG Zhi, born in Phoenix Town of Baxian County, Sichuan province in 1965, is an important poet, critic and translator in contemporary China. His pen name is Diablo, English name is Arthur ZHANG, and ancestral place is Nan’an of Chongqing City. He is a doctor of literature. He is the current president of the International Poetry Translation and Research Centre, executive editor of Rendition of International Poetry Quarterly (multilingual), editor-in-chief of the English edition of World Poetry Yearbook. He began to publish his literary and translation works since 1986. Some of his literary works have been translated into more than thirty foreign languages. He has ever won poetry prizes from Greece, Brazil, America, Israel, France, India, Italy, Austria, Lebanon, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Japan. His main works include poetry collections such as RECEITA (Portuguese-English-Chinese), SELECTED POEMS OF DIABLO (English), POETRY BY ZHANG ZHI (German-English-Portuguese), Selected Poems of Diablo (Chinese-English), and A Jigsaw Picture of the World (Albanian), خُصْلةٌ مِنْ شَعْرٍ عَلَىْ وَرَق (Arabic), collection of poetry criticism entitled Series Essays on Avant-Garde Chinese Poets, etc. He has published translated poetry collections A & 1 IS THE FOUNDER and Selected Poems of Tareq Samin. In addition, he has edited Selected Poems of Contemporary International Poets (English-Chinese), Selected New Chinese Poems of 20th Century (Chinese-English), A Dictionary of Contemporary International Poets (multilingual), Chinese-English Textbook 300 New Chinese Poems (1917—2012), and Century-Old Classics·300 New Chinese Poems (1917-2016), etc. He now lives in Chongqing city.