23rd July 2025, Ma Yongbo is back in Harbin, for a while, where he grew up, walking along a street past the green minarets of the local Churches. There are many churches on the same street. He sends his WhatsApp footage to Helen Pletts
god as the green roof of a Harbin church—for Yongbo
上帝如同哈尔滨一座教堂的绿色屋顶——致永波
minaret green curves emerge out from beneath the green leaves
the heady height of Harbin trees, soft-green against the blue sky.
In the presence of deity, green will signify
the locked question lifted free, the point at which
the roof pierces the blue sky is where the
atmosphere bristles in expectation
drop to the sidewalk and the traffic signalling like lost geese,
cars replay each other’s calls.
Movement here is a volley of repeated echoes
within a vaulted skyline. Afternoon stretches the paving,
the sun has passed her own highest point
and god himself waits in the clouds for her
23rd July 2025
written after receiving and seeing a WhatsApp video of a Harbin Street, in which Yongbo, speaking in English, is pointing out the churches with green roofs which happen to be in close proximity to one another
Response Poetry By Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨
Response Poetry Translated by Ma Yongbo 马永波
上帝如同哈尔滨一座教堂的绿色屋顶——致永波
god as the green roof of a Harbin church—for Yongbo
尖塔的绿色曲线从绿叶下浮现
哈尔滨的树高得晕眩，嫩绿衬着蓝天。
在神的存在中，绿色象征着
未解的问题得以释放，
屋顶刺破蓝天之处，
空气因期待而震颤
镜头降至人行道，车流
像迷路的鹅群发出信号，
汽车重复着彼此的鸣响。
这里的移动是一连串重复的回声
在拱形天际线下。午后拉长了铺路石，
太阳已越过自己的最高点
上帝在云端等待着她
2025年7月23日
海伦·普莱茨
在收到并观看了一段哈尔滨街头的WhatsApp视频后而作，视频中，永波一边说英语，一边指着那些恰好彼此相邻的绿屋顶的教堂
YouTube Link of Harbin Churches
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6U5ysxfBob0
Hagia Sophia 圣索菲亚
Once the air was filled with light, once the air sang
the radiant dome once brimmed with visions
cold and darkness could only cower under chairs
between clashing knees and boots
After the gathering, we went home
the church went dark, while a thousand lights lit the city
snowdrifts by the road were like melting lanterns
the colourful air behind the glass took one’s breath away
Ten years have passed… The streets have grown crowded
the greenish church is like an abandoned outhouse
sunken among a patch of low shacks
that was the warehouse where the theatre stored its puppets
An era has snuffed out its lamps
a staggering doorkeeper heads for the noisy tavern
a pale icon appears at the window
with its heavy, dark wings
1991
Response Poetry By Ma Yongbo 马永波
Response Poetry Translated by Ma Yongbo 马永波
圣索菲亚 Hagia Sophia 马永波
空气曾经充满灯光，空气曾经歌唱
流光溢彩的穹顶曾经异象纷呈
塞冷与黑暗只能蜷缩在椅子底下
在磕碰的膝盖与长靴之间
散场后我们回家
教堂黑了，城中万家灯火
路旁的雪堆仿佛正在融化的灯笼
玻璃后彩色的空气令人屏息
已是十年……街道变得拥挤
绿油油的教堂像个废弃的厕所
陷在一片低矮的棚屋之中
那是话剧院存放人偶的仓库
一个时代熄灭了灯盏
踉跄的守门人走向喧闹的酒馆
苍白的圣像在窗口出现
带着它黑沉沉的翅膀
1991
马永波
The same year that ‘Hagia Sofia’ was written, Ma Yongbo’s first poetry collection ‘Red Bird’ was also published (Hong Kong Wen Guang Publishing House, 1991).
Image : Ma Yongbo 马永波, Harbin. 2025.
Ma Yongbo 马永波 also worked in Harbin as a qualified Software Engineer, until 2004, When he took up his Professorship in the Faculty of Arts and Literature, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, his studies centring around Chinese and western modern poetics, post-modern literature, eco-criticism and western literary theory.
He has always written poetry from his youth.
Image: Ma Yongbo 马永波, Xi’an, 2025,
Ma Yongbo 马永波 was born in 1964, Ph.D, representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry, and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry. He is the founder of polyphonic writing and objectified poetics. He is also the first translator to introduce British and American postmodern poetry into Chinese, making contributions that fill gaps, the various postmodern poetry schools in Chinese are mostly guided by his poetics and translation.
He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 included 9 poetry collections. He focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams and Ashbery. He published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over 600,000 copies. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre, 2024) comprising 1178 poems, celebrate 40 years of writing poetry.
His work is widely published in international journals such as New American Writing，Livemag, Cafe Review, International Times, Vox Populi, Ink Sweat and Tears, Orbis, Cambridge Poetry, Polismagazino.gr, europeanpoetry.com, Verse-Virtual.org, Magique Publishing, Primelore.com, Verseum Literary, Area Felix，Masticadoresusa，Feed the Holy，ONE, Sindhcourier，Lingo Lexicon，Worldinkers，Avantappalachia，Masticadorescanada，Madswirl，Collaborature，Allyourpoems，Homouniversalisgr，100subtextsmagazine，Pandemoniumjournal，Cultural Reverence，Rochford Street Review，Synchchaos，Ezra，Autumn Sky Poetry Daily，Nuthatchmag，Posit，Yumpu，Our Poetry Archive，All Your Poems，Subliminal.surgery，Atunis，Insightmagazine，Lothlorien Poetry Journal，Acheron，Gorkogazette，A Too Powerful Word，Chiron Review，Gas，Chewers，Medusaskitchen，Beatnikcowboy，Dear O Deer!，New Black Bart Poetry Society, Edge of Humanity，Liveencounters，Big Other etc.
马永波出生于1964年，文学博士，中国先锋诗歌代表人物，领先的英美诗歌学者。他是复调写作和客观化诗学的奠基者，也是第一个将英美后现代诗歌译介进汉语的翻译家，具有填补空白的贡献，汉语中诸种后现代诗歌流派多受其诗学与翻译的引领。
从1986年起，他已出版原创与翻译著作80余卷，包括9部诗集。他专注于翻译和教授英美诗歌和散文，包括狄金森、惠特曼、史蒂文斯、庞德、威廉斯和阿什贝利的作品。他最近出版了《白鲸》的全译本，销量已超过60万册。他任教于南京理工大学。《马永波诗歌总集》（四卷本，东方出版中心，2024年）共收录1178首诗，庆祝他诗学探索40周年。
Image: Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨, Cambridge, 2025
Helen Pletts is a British poet based in Cambridge, whose work has been translated into Chinese, Bangla, Greek, Vietnamese, Serbian, Korean, Arabic, Romanian, Croatian and Italian. She is the English co-translator of Chinese poet Ma Yongbo.
Helen’s poetry has garnered significant recognition, including five shortlistings for the Bridport Poetry Prize (2018, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024), two longlistings for The Rialto Nature & Place Prize (2018, 2022), a longlisting for the Ginkgo Prize (2019), a longlisting for the National Poetry Competition (2022), 2nd Prize in the Plaza Prose Poetry Competition (2022-23), and a shortlisting for the Plaza Prose Poetry Competition (2023-24).
Her three collections include the illustrated ‘your eye protects the soft-toed snow drop’, with Romit Berger (2022, ISBN 978-9-657-68177-0, Gama Poetry) and two early collections ‘Bottle bank’ (2008 ISBN 978-1-84923-119-0), and ‘For the chiding dove’ (2009, ISBN 978-1-84923-485-6) published by YWO/Legend Press with Arts Council support. Her prizewinning prose poetry features in The Plaza Prizes anthologies, and her eco-poetry appears in anthologies from Open Shutter Press and Fly on the Wall Press. Her work is widely published in journals such as International Times, Vox Populi, Ink Sweat and Tears, Aesthetica, Orbis, The Mackinaw, Cambridge Poetry, The Fenland Reed, Poetry on the Lake, Polismagazino.gr, europeanpoetry.com, Verse-Virtual.org, Magique Publishing, Primelore.com, Deshusa.com, Verseum Literary, Stigmalogou.gr, Area Felix, New World Poetry (Chinese)—four of her prose poems, translated by Ma Yongbo, opened the 35th Anniversary Edition dedicated to prose poetry, December 2024.
Publisher Kate Birch describes her work: “Helen’s very personal poetry reveals her strong connection to the natural world while also laying herself open emotionally. She writes with a thoughtful, mesmerising delicacy on love and death, on joy and need, illness and exhaustion.”
I enjoy this collection of poems—Helen has restored her individuality into different animals, plants, and even more tranquil scenes, and this process is neither passive nor deliberately planned. Clearly, this new type of relationship between humans and nature not only opens up a new world for us but also places us in the most fitting position within it. The translator’s non-subjective handling of language style, along with the retention of structures like post-positioned adverbs, allows Helen (who can also be seen as the modern human subject) to faithfully present her sense of restoration within the concise framework of Chinese. Their joint effort gives readers the trinitarian nature of the medium, that precious power which expands through the natural, spiritual, and linguistic ecologies—clear, silent, and growing. (Yan Rong, poet, PhD, professor)
海伦·普莱茨（Helen Pletts）是一位生活在剑桥的英国诗人，其作品已被译为中文、孟加拉语、希腊语、越南语、塞尔维亚语、韩语、阿拉伯语和意大利语。她是中国诗人马永波诗歌的英文合作译者。
普莱茨的诗歌创作屡获殊荣：五度入围布里德波特诗歌奖（2018、2019、2022-2024），两度入选《里亚尔托》自然与地方诗歌奖长名单（2018、2022），入围银杏生态诗歌奖（2019）、英国国家诗歌大赛（2022），获广场散文诗大赛亚军（2022-23）并再度入围该奖项决选名单（2023-24）。
她出版的三部诗集包括与罗米特·伯杰合作的插图诗集《你的眼睛守护着软趾雪花莲》（2022年，ISBN 978-9-657-68177-0，伽马诗歌），以及由青年作家组织/传奇出版社在艺术委员会资助下出版的早期诗集《瓶子银行》（2008年，ISBN 978-1-84923-119-0）与《致训诫之鸽》（2009年，ISBN 978-1-84923-485-6）。其获奖散文诗收录于《广场奖选集》，生态诗歌见于“打开快门”出版社与“墙头蝇”出版社的选集。作品广泛发表于《国际时报》《民众之声》《墨汗泪》《美学》《奥比斯》《麦基诺》《剑桥诗刊》《沼地芦苇》《湖上诗刊》《城邦》《欧洲诗歌》《诗虚拟》《魔法》《原始传说》《德胡萨》《诗界》《理念的圣痕》《菲利克斯领域》以及《新世界诗刊》（中文版）——其中四篇由马永波翻译的散文诗作为开篇之作，刊登于2024年12月出版的散文诗专号（创刊35周年纪念特辑）。
出版人凯特·伯奇如此评价她的作品：“海伦的诗歌极具个人特质，既展现了她与自然世界的深刻关联，又毫无保留地袒露情感。她以一种沉思的、令人着迷的细腻笔触，书写爱与死亡、欢愉与渴求、疾病与衰竭。”
我享受这组诗——海伦把她的个人性还原到了不同的动物、植物甚至更为静谧的场景当中，而且，这个过程并非是被动发生和刻意谋划的；显然，这种人和自然的新型关系，不但为我们敞开了一个新的世界，也在其中安置了我们最为恰切的位置。而译者对语言格调的非主体性处理以及状语后置等形式的保留，让海伦（也可以看作是现代人类主体）的还原意识得以在汉语的简洁框架中忠实呈现。他们的共同努力则使读者获得了三位一体的介质属性，即那宝贵的扩展于自然生态、精神生态和语言生态中的清醒、沉默而生长的力量。（晏榕，诗人，博士，教授）
I notice the silver leaves spinning tonight by Helen Pletts
我注意到今晚银色的树叶在旋转
作者：（英国）海伦·普莱茨
中文朗诵：美国枫叶
英文朗诵：海伦·普莱茨
配乐：小草
就像小月亮在夜的树枝上互相交谈，
在白色无法安顿的地方，
她就是所有的沙沙声，思想转动；
骨感的白色细枝有如她思想的音叉。
叶子像银色的浅滩在黑暗的大海中漂流，
运动将每一片叶子打开；
每一片都单独带着一个小小的白鳍。
住在天鹅绒斗篷里的鱼
在你周围掠过，而你就在某处
衣领上翻
I notice the silver leaves spinning tonight
as small moons speaking to one another in the night-branches,
where white cannot settle,
she is all rustle, thought-turning;
boney white twigs like tuning forks for her thoughts.
Leaves like a silver shoal drifting in a dark sea,
movement opens each one;
each one is solitary with a tiny white fin.
The fish reside in a velvet cloak
swept about you, and you are somewhere
wearing an upturned collar
22nd October 2024
by Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨
Translation by Ma Yongbo 马永波
YouTube Bilingual recitation video link address:
Ma Yongbo and Helen Pletts singing together 8/8/2025
l
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