First published by Dan Leighton, Editor of https://www.cambridgepoetry.com/
Two poems by poets Helen Pletts and Ma Yongbo will be played both in English and Chinese to BBC radio listeners by Rob Jelly this week on his BBC Upload show!! @BBCUpload
You can hear them both on Thursday 23rd January & Saturday 25th, nights, from 6pm
Available on the radio, or you can listen via the free BBC Sounds app, here ->https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08q3hsh
One hour into the show, listen here
Mid-Autumn poetic responses between Ma Yongbo and Helen Pletts 2024
“At 5:15 pm, 17th September my best friend and celebrated Chinese poet Ma Yongbo, was still awake. Eight hours of the clock separate our days, why was he still awake? I wrote to him, was he ok? This was the reason, he had just completed his 650 line translation of Amy Lowell’s long poem. He wished me Happy Full Moon, it was the start of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. I decided to write him a celebratory poem which he enjoyed and responded to.” Helen Pletts
“During the Mid-Autumn Festival, I was delighted to receive a poem from my dear friend Helen Pletts, and I promptly wrote a response poem. China has a long-standing tradition of poetic exchanges and responses between poets, which has been a commonplace practice, especially in the poetry of the Tang and Song dynasties, as seen in the exchange poems between the brothers Su Shi and Su Zhe, or between Liu Yuxi and Bai Juyi.”
Ma Yongbo
Ma Yongbo
The moon is the white place in the sea of poetry 月亮是诗海中的白色之地 海伦·普莱茨
(For Yongbo, after a sleepless night finishing revising his Chinese translation of Amy Lowell’s 650 line long poem by the morning of the Mid-Autumn Festival)
Happy is the Full Moon,
the shiny white face at your window.
She will love your company,
the smart poet, gazes up at the moon,
the moon is very happy about that.
Her light can make us drop a stitch in the quilt of night
Her curiousness beaming through glass.
If we live at all it is her shaking us on the water
She pulls the levers and spins us beautifully.
We never have to reckon with darkness, silver-she,
Navigating the universe for us,
spins until our sleepy heads nod,
laden with her silverlight.
The industrious poet’s midnight oil burning brightly,
like a very bright lighthouse over the seven seas.
17 Sept 2024
by Helen Pletts
Translated by Ma Yongbo 2024
First published in Cambridge Poetry, Episode 1, Volume 1
月亮是诗海中的白色之地 海伦·普莱茨 The moon is the white place in the sea of poetry 马永波 译
（献给永波，一夜无眠，中秋清晨修订完成艾米·洛威尔650行长诗的中文翻译）
幸福是满月，
在你窗前闪耀的洁白面庞。
她会喜爱你的陪伴，
睿智的诗人，凝望着月亮，
月亮对此感到非常高兴。
她的光芒能使我们在夜的被子上漏织一针。
她的好奇照透了玻璃。
若我们还能存活，那是她在水面上摇晃我们。
她操控着杠杆，优美地把我们旋转。
我们从不必顾虑黑暗，银色的她，
为我们把宇宙导航，
旋转，直到我们睡思昏沉，头颅低垂，
充满她的银光。
勤勉的诗人，午夜的油灯熊熊燃烧，
如同七海之上一座耀眼的灯塔。
2024年9月17日
First published in Cambridge Poetry, Episode 1, Volume 1
Our Own Moon — For Helen Pletts 我们的月亮——赠海伦·普莱茨
Our moon shines on the sea and on the ditches,
Shining on good people and poets alike.
Our moon is not insomnia,
Not a companion who doesn’t understand drinking,
Not the frost that never melts on the window,
Nor the jade disc of other people’s homeland.
The moon shines into the pine forest,
The moon surges from the Tianshan Mountain,
The moon stands alone before the empty golden goblet,
The moon seems small above towering mountains,
The moon illuminates the worn green collar of a returning traveler,
The moon ties to the tips of willow branches,
The moon curls up the pearl curtain like a hook,
The moon startles magpies into flight, the moon shifting shadows on walls,
Even the moon serves as a searchlight of the universe,
The moon gleams like a blade—none of these are our moon.
Our moon is a small seashell,
Walking step by step across the seven seas from the dark ocean floor.
As it walks, it sips on the sounds flowing through the light cables.
By the time it arrives at Cambridge,
A village floating over the river of flower fragrance,
And lands on the blue-painted wooden windowsill of the poetess,
It has already become a word cleansed of metaphor,
Smooth and transparent, like an ear,
Blushing in the morning light.
Mid-Autumn Festival, September 17, 2024
by Ma Yongbo 马永波
Translated by Ma Yongbo
First published in Cambridge Poetry, Episode 1, Volume 1
我们的月亮——赠海伦·普莱茨 Our Own Moon — For Helen Pletts 马永波
我们的月亮照大海，也照沟渠
照好人，也照诗人
我们的月亮不是失眠
不是不解饮的伙伴
不是窗前永不融化的霜
也不是他人故乡的白玉盘
照进松林的月，涌出天山的月
独对空空的金樽的月
山高月小的月，照亮归人磨损的青青衣领的月
系在柳梢头的月，卷起珠帘如钩的月
惊飞乌鹊的月，花影移墙的月
甚至作为宇宙探照灯的月
刀光闪闪的月，都不是我们的月亮
我们的月亮是一只小小的贝壳
从漆黑的海底一步一步走过七海
一边走，一边吸吮着光缆里的声音
等它来到剑桥，一座漂浮在花香之上的村庄
来到女诗人蓝油漆的木头窗台上
它已经成了一个洗净了隐喻的词语
光洁而透亮，像一只耳朵
在晨光中泛出红晕
2024年9月17日中秋
First published in Cambridge Poetry, Episode 1, Volume 1
Ma Yongbo 马永波 was born in 1964. Since the age of 27 he has published 7 poetry collections: 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),A Grateful Ode to Eternity (Long poetry collection, Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, 2024). He is a Chinese scholar 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 1600 poems, celebrate 40 years of writing poetry.
马永波出生于1964年。自27岁起，他已出版了7本诗集：《红鸟》（香港文光出版社，1991年）、《以两种速度播放的夏天》（台湾唐山出版社，1999年）、《词语中的旅行》（花城出版社，2015年）、《自我的地理学》（浙江工商大学出版社，2018年）、《不系之舟》（中国国际广播出版社，2024年）、《致永恒的答谢词》（长诗集，四川文艺出版社，2024年）。他是一位专注于翻译和教授英美诗歌和散文的中国学者，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50万册。他在南京理工大学任教。《马永波诗歌总集》（四卷本，东方出版中心，2024年）共收录1600首诗，庆祝他诗学探索40周年。
Helen Pletts: (www.helenpletts.com) Shortlisted 5 times for Bridport Poetry Prize 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024, twice longlisted for The Rialto Nature & Place 2018 and 2022, longlisted for the Ginkgo Prize 2019, longlisted for The National Poetry Competition 2022. 2nd prize Plaza Prose Poetry 2022-23. Shortlisted Plaza Prose Poetry 2023-24. Working closely with Ma Yongbo since Feb 2024.
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