Photo: (right to left) poet Ma Yongbo with poet and filmmaker Tong Xiaofeng, the poetry road trip wound up making a surprise visit to Xiaofeng, in Xi’an, who plans to make a film called ‘Travelling in Words’ about Ma Yongbo and his poetry.
Video: Ma Yongbo, reading poetry during a meal with his long term poet and best friend Tong Xiaofeng and other poetry friends
Ma Yongbo, Tong Xiaofeng (his best friend from all the way back to university days), reunion with poetry friends from Xi’an Jiaotong University where Ma Yongbo studied in 1981.
Waking Up in Early Summer in Chang’an 在长安的初夏醒来
Waking up in early summer when locust trees line the streets of Chang’an
In an inn called “Imperial City Post”
No couriers, no horses for relay
Not even a bony, knife-sharp donkey
No misty rain that soaks the clothes
I wander alone, trying to recall
The name of a certain street. Children
Wear uniform blue-and-white school uniforms, heavy schoolbags on their backs
Only they no longer recite my poems
Nor is there a white screen wall for me to write verses
Regardless of drunk poet friends who once splashed ink upon it
This ancient capital where I spent four years of bitter youth
Has completely erased my memories
Like footprints in water
Swarms of mayflies gather and disperse on the water’s surface
Who was I, and who was once me?
If I keep walking, out of any city gate
I will meet my 18-year-old self
With tangled hair, clutching a flattened wine flask
Perhaps, a scroll of blurry poems hidden in my sleeve
Just awakened from a embrace that has grown cold
Written in the morning of May 13, 2025, in Xi’an (ancient name: Chang’an)
By Ma Yongbo 马永波
Translated by Ma Yongbo 马永波
在长安的初夏醒来 Waking Up in Early Summer in Chang’an 马永波
在长安满街槐树的初夏醒来
在一座叫做”皇城驿”的旅馆
没有驿卒，没有可供替换的马匹
甚至没有瘦骨棱棱锋利如刀的蹇驴
没有沾衣欲湿的雨
我独自游荡，试图回忆起
某条街道的名字。孩子们
穿着统一的蓝白校服，书包沉重
只是他们不再朗读我的诗
也没有一处白色影壁让我题诗
毫不顾忌有哪些醉酒的诗友曾经泼墨于上
这座我度过四年苦涩青春的古都
竟已把我的记忆彻底消灭
如同水中的脚印
大群蜉蝣在水面时聚时散
我曾是谁，谁又曾经是我？
如果一直走，走出任何一座城门
我就会遇见十八岁的自己
乱发纠结，怀揣一只压扁的酒壶
也许，袖子里还藏着一卷字迹模糊的诗
刚刚从某个已经变冷的怀抱中醒来
2025年5月13日晨于西安，西安古称长安，马永波
Chinese link here https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/uIXWWlKIYGSTuQzRK_ShIg
Helen Pletts www.helenpletts.com responded with a poem for Ma Yongbo to celebrate his reunion with his university friends:
Helen Pletts works closely with Ma Yongbo on bilingual poetry translation and response poetry. Her poetry has been translated into Chinese (by Ma Yongbo), Greek, Vietnamese, Bangla and Italian.
meeting friends in a golden light—for Yongbo 与友相聚于金光之中——致永波
evening breeze beside the inn,
resting in the warm blush of a red lantern,
has found grace
in its own reflection.
And laughter rises in a golden spiral,
the breeze is too unhurried to untangle.
13th May 2025
by Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨
Response Poetry translated by Ma Yongbo 马永波
与友相聚于金光之中——致永波 meeting friends in a golden light—for Yongbo
客栈旁的晚风，
憩息于红灯笼温暖的红晕里，
在自身的倒影中
寻得恩泽。
而笑声升起金色的螺旋，
风太过从容，无法解开。
海伦·普莱茨 2025年5月13日
Ma Yongbo was born in 1964,Ph.D, 马永波 @mayongbopoetry https://mayongbopoetry.wordpress.com/ ,representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry, and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry.He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 included 7 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 recently published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over half a million 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.He is the editor-in-chief of the “Chinese Regional Poetry Yearbook” and the “Northeast Three Provinces Poetry Yearbook”.
Baidu Encyclopedia entry,”Ma Yongbo has greatly promoted the postmodern transformation of Chinese poetic language in his creative practice, and has long been committed to the translation and research of modern and contemporary British and American literature. He is the main poet-translator of Western postmodern poetry on the mainland, filling the gap in the research of British and American postmodern poetry, and was the first to translate Ashbery, the most famous American poet after Eliot, into China.”(https://baike.baidu.com/item/马永波/10787276)
Baidu Encyclopedia entry on the history of the development of modern Chinese poetry，Ma Yongbo ranks among the top three poets of the 1990s(https://baike.baidu.com/item/现代诗歌发展史?fromModule=lemma_search-box)
Baidu Encyclopedia entry on outstanding contemporary poets, Ma Yongbo is listed among the 100 famous contemporary Chinese poets since the 1920s(https://baike.baidu.com/item/当代杰出诗人/14719125?fr=aladdin)
Read his full Bio in Chinese here https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ozCYBwEEyGeJ5wRbL6Sdow
Ma Yongbo
Art and literature department
Nanjing University Of Science & Technology
Xiaolingwei 200#
Nanjing, Jiangsu Province
China
Email:[email protected]
Poetry Collection:
Red Bird (Hong Kong Wen Guang Publishing House, 1991)
Summer Played at Two Speeds (Tangshan Publishing House, Taiwan, 1999)
Journey in Words (Huacheng Publishing House, 2015)
Geography of the Self (Zhejiang Gongshang University Press, 2018)
Untied Boat (China International Broadcasting Press,2024)
Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre,2024)
Essays:
Desolate White Paper (Beijing University of Technology Press, 2012)
Snow on the Hedges (Commercial Press, 2013)
Academic Monographs:
The Nine-Leaf Poetry School and Western Modernism (Eastern Publishing Center, 2010)
Exploring the Origins of Chinese and Western Poetics (Eastern Publishing Center,2024)
Translations:
Contemporary American Poets: American Poetry Since 1940;
American Poetry Since 1950:Innovators and Outsiders;
American Poetry Since 1970:Up Late;
The Selected Contemporary English Poems;
The Selected Poems By John Ashbery (two volumes)
The Selected Poems By John Ashbery (billingual,three volumes);
Poets on Painters;
The Selected Prose of Walt Whitman;
The Selected Poems & letters By Emily Dickinson;
The Selected Poetry and Prose of Wallace Stevens;
Moby Dick(Sales have exceeded 500,000 copies);
Gulliver’s Travels;
A Little Tour in France By Henry James;
Italian Hours By Henry James;
Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan By Patrick Lafcadio Hearn;
Recovering &After the Stroke By May Sarton;
Chopin In Paris;
The Habit of Being By Flannery O’Connor;
A Wonder-Book By Nathaniel Hawthorne；
Tanglewood Tales By Nathaniel Hawthorne；
Blue Bird By Maurice Maeterlinck；
The Treasure of the Humble By Maurice Maeterlinck；
Wake Robin By John Burroughs;
Signs and Seasons By John Burroughs;
Ways of Nature By John Burroughs;
Riverby By John Burroughs;
Pepacton By John Burroughs;
Lost Borders By Mary Austin;
The Land of Journeys’ Ending By Mary Austin;
The Mountains of California By John Muir;
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth By John Muir;
Travels in Alaska By John Muir;
The Bible According to Einstein By Jupiter Scientific;
Palestinian Walks By Raja Shehadeh;
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft By George Gissing;
The Medici:Godfathers of the Renaissance By Paul Strathern;
A Moveable Feast By Ernest Hemingway;
The Selected Prose By Pasternak;
The Selected Prose By Rudyard Kipling;
Paterson By William Carlos Williams;
The Selected Poems and Essays By Ezra Pound;
The Selected Poems By Amy Lowell;
The Selected Poems By Rosanna Warren;
Reading Poetry with Children;
The Selected Poems By TR Hummer;
etc.
Editor-in-Chief
Annual Anthology of Poems Most Suitable for Middle School Students (2008, 2010)
Northeast Three Provinces Poetry Yearbook (2005 Edition, 2006-2007 Edition, 2008-2009 Edition, 2015-2017 Edition)
Chinese Regional Poetry Yearbook (Shanghai Oriental Publishing Center, 2017 Edition)
21st Century Chinese Classic Poetry Series (Zhejiang Gongshang University Press, 2018 Edition)
Titles and Awards
In 2018, awarded the First Prize of the Translation Award at the 5th China Contemporary Poetry Prize. In the same year, elected President of the Xi’an Jiaotong University Alumni Literary Association.
The China Contemporary Poetry Prize is a large-scale award organised by the editorial committee of Introduction to Contemporary Chinese Poetry, the International Poetry Translation Research Centre, and the World Poets magazine in hybrid language. Established in 2010, the event has received active participation, support, and attention from millions of online readers, as well as poets, critics, translators, and scholars. The citation for the award reads: “Ma Yongbo is dedicated to both poetry creation and translation, and his translations complete the transformation of poetry across different cultural contexts and languages. In his own poetry, he speaks for himself, and as a translator, he speaks through others, thus enriching the texture and voice of his poetry, between the two banks of the river of language. He states that his goal is to be a dutiful ferryman.”
In 2012, elected Vice President of the Jiangsu Province Chinese Poetics Research Association.
In 2004, his translated work Kiss and Confession won the Third Prize for Outstanding Social Science Research Achievements in Heilongjiang Province.
In 2002, his translated work Contemporary American Poets: American Poetry Since 1940 won the First Prize for Outstanding Translation Achievements from the Heilongjiang Province Translators Association.
In 2001, he won the First Prize in the Poetry Forest magazine’s “The Heavenly Questions” Poetry Award.
In 1998, won the First Prize at the 6th China Railway Literature Awards.
Poets and scholars’ evaluations of Ma Yongbo’s poetry
Writing a few good poems in a lifetime is not difficult; what is difficult is dedicating all one’s days to writing poetry. Yongbo’s steadfast devotion to contemporary Chinese poetry, akin to martyrdom, has elevated him to a unique spiritual pinnacle. Both of us have once staked everything on poetry, defying the tides of the mundane world, but reaching the shore is clearly beyond human effort, let alone claiming the high ground. I have come to believe that a higher spiritual essence, beyond human comprehension, has chosen Yongbo, enabling him to consistently create unique texts that the ordinary world cannot construct—what we call “Ma Yongbo’s Poetry.”
— Gu Yifan (Founder of Blue Ocean Television, Poet, Ph.D., Professor)
From being confined to fixed positions (ideological centrism, enlightenment, deconstruction) to constructing a poetry oriented toward the essence of things, this marks the most significant turning point in contemporary Chinese poetry. As a representative figure driving this transformation, Ma Yongbo’s greatest contribution to Chinese poetry is his use of diverse linguistic experiments to create complex structures, leading the traditionally simplistic Chinese language toward self-reference and self-reflection. This enables Chinese poetry to not only articulate the world but also introspect. This revolution in Chinese language, driven by the revolution in Chinese poetry, will inevitably alter the way Chinese people think.
— “Poetry Oriented Toward the Essence of Things” (Wang Xiaohua, Ph.D., Professor)
From the distant northeast comes a resonant, dark, cold, and unrestrained chime, echoing in all directions. Ma Yongbo’s poetry stands in stark contrast to the cultural styles of regions like Qi and Lu, Jing and Chu, Ba and Shu, Wu and Yue, and Taiwan and Fujian, carving out a unique and distinct path.In Ma Yongbo’s poetry, one can feel an insatiable hunger for exploring the true essence of existence—no trace of luck, no longing for redemption. The harsh reality of life without room for alteration has forged in Ma Yongbo the courage and determination to confront existence head-on. Through layers of revelation and internal and external reflection, his polyphonic writing penetrates darkness and silence, illuminating both death and life, all while exuding an incomparable, bone-chilling coldness.His poetry is austere and magnanimous, with a robust spiritual presence and a vast magnetic field, imbued with the crisp and clear essence of the northern cold lands. It has opened up an immeasurable and mysterious poetic realm for Chinese poetry.
— “The Secret of Polyphony—An Analysis of Ma Yongbo’s Poetic Art Through Multiple Perspectives” (Huang Liang, Poet, Critic, Taiwan)
All images copyright © poet Ma Yongbo