Painting : The False Mirror, Paris 1929, by René Magritte
“The painter’s art, as I see it, is about making poetic images visible.” René Magritte
“With his pictorial and linguistic puzzles, Magritte made the familiar disturbing and strange, posing questions about the nature of representation and reality.”
René Magritte, Belgian, 1898–1967 https://www.moma.org/collection/artists/3692
Premonition 预感
How to go deep into this autumn?
Not realising if its iron gate clattering open
leads to a timeless world
or a swarm of brown spectres suddenly fly out.
The only certainty is the snow cloud behind it,
swelling, motionless for a long time, bruised
like a white pig has been kicked hard.
The crickets’ chirping grows louder into the night,
As if a cold premonition.
The wind makes me tremble,
But I do not tremble because of the wind.
The picnic flags by the river still cling to the willows,
In a blink, the barbecue lights and tents disappear,
not even the sound of engines starting can be heard.
The dusk cocktail beyond the woods,
gradually precipitating into deep red, green, and silver grey.
I quicken my pace. Suddenly, in the darkness by the river,
a darker horse emerges, sweating,
blooming towards me a black dahlia.
3 September 2024
Response Poetry By Ma Yongbo 马永波
Response Poetry Translated by Ma Yongbo 马永波
Photograph: Ma Yongbo, ‘representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry’, in Harbin snow, 1st February 2025
预感 Premonition
该如何深入这个秋天
你不知道它的铁门哗啦啦打开的
是一个无时间的世界
还是一群褐色的幽灵突然飞出
唯一可以确定的是它后面的雪云
膨胀着，久久不动，淤青
仿佛被狠狠踢了一脚的白猪
蟋蟀入夜的鸣叫越来越响亮
像是一种寒冷的预感
风让我颤抖
但我不是为了风而颤抖
河边野餐的小旗还留在柳树上
转眼间，那些烧烤灯和帐篷便消失了
连汽车发动的声音都不曾听见
暮色的鸡尾酒在树林那边
渐渐沉淀出深红，青绿，银灰
我加快脚步，突然，河边的黑暗中
一匹更黑暗的马走了出来，冒着汗
一朵大丽花向我开放
2024年9月3日
马永波
everything is a kicked white pig
——Written in response to Yongbo’s poem “Premonition”
一切都是被踢的白猪
——应和永波诗《预感》
The beach is like a drum,
the rhythm of nature wanting room,
the bluster behind us.
The metal ring on the flagpole
chimes like an impatient bell.
The mares’ tails flick as white,
but they might be white fishbones,
might be more blue than spiny-white,
might be hanging on to the ice, layers up,
so they might be something else again,
but if I am looking for you, my friend,
you are not in the sky.
Deserted beach huts face the boiling surf,
speckled juveniles call obliquely
to their gull mothers to come home
The sand loving us so much
it wants to be part of every crevice
and we are spare cliffs for the taking,
my face is showing signs of wear,
perhaps I am no longer recognisable,
an old man careers past on a mobility scooter,
they go faster, i will still move when i am old.
Wind is sucked in, echos in the drinks can,
the sound in my head through a white paper straw.
8th September 2024 midday, on a windy bench in Southwold, overlooking the sea.
Response Poetry By Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨
Response Poetry Translated by Ma Yongbo 马永波
Photograph: Helen Pletts sitting on a wooden bench overlooking the sea at Southwold,
writing ‘everything is a kicked white pig’ for Yongbo, 8th September 2024
一切都是被踢的白猪
——应和永波诗《预感》
everything is a kicked white pig
——Written in response to Yongbo’s poem “Premonition”
海滩像一面鼓，
自然的节奏需要空间，
我们身后是狂风呼啸。
旗杆上的金属环
像不耐烦的铃铛叮当作响。
母马的尾巴甩动着白色，
但它们可能是白色的鱼骨，
可能比多刺的白更蓝一些，
可能还粘在冰上，层层叠叠，
所以它们可能又是别的东西，
但如果我寻找你，我的朋友，
你并不在天上。
荒废的海滩小屋面对着沸腾的潮涌，
带斑点的雏鸟拐弯抹角地呼唤
它们的海鸥母亲回家。
沙子对我们的爱如此深刻
想成为每个缝隙的一部分，
而我们是任其侵占的备用悬崖，
我的脸上已显露出磨损的痕迹，
或许别人会不再认得我，
一位老人开着电动代步车疾驰而过，
速度越来越快，等我老了我也能这样运动。
风被吸入，在饮料罐里回响，
声音通过白色纸吸管进入我的脑海。
2024年9月8日
“Together, Helen Pletts and Ma Yongbo craft a choral lyricism, a poetic ecosystem, where separation and unity coexist. Their combined work thrives not in unanimity but in productive tension—like the ‘eight-hour time difference’ that becomes a ‘river’ they both navigate. The collection succeeds as a meditation on how art bridges divides, making the ‘invisible’ threads between worlds palpable.
Helen Pletts and Ma Yongbo create a rare synergy where two voices, though distinct, amplify each other’s strengths. The interplay feels less like a conversation and more like a shared incantation—one that turns time zones and languages into a single, shimmering horizon.” NASIR AIJAZ, Editor of Sindh Courier, on the Response Poetry of Ma Yongbo 马永波 and Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨
excerpt from The Combined Poetic Dialogue https://sindhcourier.com/the-combined-poetic-dialogue/
Nasir Aijaz full BIO here https://internationaltimes.it/ma-yongbo-poetry-road-trip-summer-tour-2025-volume-10/
Photograph: NASIR AIJAZ, Editor of Sindh Courier
‘Premonition’ and ‘everything is like a kicked white pig’ are taken from the Response Poetry section of Ma Yongbo and Helen Pletts’ forthcoming bilingual poetry book entitled ‘Night-Shining White’ to be published by Editor Pete Taylor, Open Shutter Press in 2025/26, currently delayed due to Helen Pletts’ ill health. The poetry collection is over 320 pages long and would in fact have been longer, 420 pages, but for the decision to omit some of the Chinese versions of Ma Yongbo’s poetry which is already available in print. Their very unusual bilingual book confirms their first long year journey as co-translators and close friends who continue to produce a large body of new poetic material in response to each other’s lives and the everyday events around them. They plan to continue working together lifelong. Their poetry is published significantly on International Times.IT
“Helen Pletts’ poetic creation is by no means a mere “writing about nature” or “recording of emotions,” but a poetic system with inherent logic and conscious theoretical awareness. When we strip away the detailed presentation of specific poems, the uniqueness of her poetic pursuit emerges clearly: she reconstructs the perceptual relationship between humans and the world through “natural phenomenology” to dissolve the subject-object opposition between humans and nature; breaks the constraints of linear time via “cross-temporal emotional topology” to construct a folded space where memory and reality converge; and endows simple images with existential contemplation through “the philosophical transformation of everyday metaphors”. These three dimensions collectively constitute the core traits that distinguish her from traditional nature poets. “
Excerpt from “The Luminous World of All-Embracing Oneness: Reflections on Translating Helen Pletts’ Poetry, Ma Yongbo, Evening of September 2nd to the early morning of 3rd, 2025, Harbin
Photograph: Helen Pletts, with Sasha Pletts, Cambridge, 8th February 2025
Photograph: cloud formations over the sea that were the inspiration for ‘everything is a kicked white pig’ written for Yongbo by Helen Pletts, Southwold, 8th September 2024
Specific photographic images/graphic art under individual copyright © to either Ma Yongbo 马永波 or Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨
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