Friday, July 16, 2021

Terrence Folz Reading From "Bunt Burke"

 











Terrence Folz's chapbook Bunt Burke will appear from The Circulatory Press in August 2021. The above film features him reading some of the poems in the book. The launch reading is scheduled for Saturday, September 11, 2021, at 1:30 pm at Burnes Park in Hopkins, MN. We will have a picnic beforehand, starting at one. If you come to that, please bring a salad and BYOB, no alcohol.

Jake Reeds (Jefferson Hansen) and Christine Jaspers will also read, and there may be one more featured reader. There will also be an all-inclusive open reading period. All are welcome to participate. For more information, see The Circulatory Press website.

________________________________

This is the last post on The Altered Scale Blog, and marks the end of The Altered Scale project, which has run on and off since 2012. I am shutting down because my current work circumstances make a robust Internet presence impractical. I need to move on. My new project is The Circulatory Press. I have already published two micro pieces, one copy of Dancing Stick Figures and 11 copies of Hazy — Minneapolis, July 2021, both by me. I am known as "Jake Reeds," my ghostly alter-ego, in my association with The Circulatory Press. Jake Reeds is a ghost, mere squiggly marks on the page, that some say arrive through pure thought, without writing or typing, like a spiritualist painting that leaps from the paint directly onto the canvas through the medium not of paint brushes but mental focus. 

But this could be untrue. I heard it on a Zoom call, during a pandemic.

I am sorry to see AlteredScale go, but it is impractical to keep my editing and publishing focus web based. Thank you to all the artists who have participated over the years. I have always tried to be a good editor, and I did my best to support and publicize the work of artists I believed in. The Altered Scale Blog will remain up on the Internet indefinitely.

Cheers,

Jefferson Hansen

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

That Day by Hei Feng, tr. Wang Ping

That Day

by Hei Feng, tr. Wang Ping

 

So much anxiety after Mother was buried

So much fear

Under the white sun

You died, Mother

My wound was buried with your body 

Your black bones have my batting sticks

That day

I carried the wind

I carried white eyes

Empty basket

That day, I was empty

That day, I was weightless

That day, I was all bones

That day, I was full of fear

My sister was still young

My other sister was married

I went out to gather vegetables for pigs

Lilies,shepherd purse, spinach

Come out, hurry

Alfalfa, plantain, ground covers

Don’t hide yourselves

I’m coming

Seek

Seek seek seek seek

I filled half of my basket 

The sun entered the earth

My little sister wanted her mother

Don’t be afraid

Big brother will take you home

Brother, your hand is cold

Brother, you’re crying

Sister, you have no idea

what kind of fear I have in my heart

That day

The world changed

The white sun pushed me down

Water carried me 

----away

That day, I was all bones

That day, I was weightless

That day, I was empty

That day, I was afraid

The world was a net full of holes

 

那天……

葬了母好惊慌

葬了母

白太阳

你死去

体内有我的

你的黑骨里

有我的木棒

那天

我提着

我提着白眼

空竹

那天,我空

那天,我

那天,我瘦

那天,我多么慌

妹妹小

姊姊出嫁了

我去找猪草

黄花菜地米菜耳

快出来

苜蓿草前草被褥草

不要

我来找

找找找找找……

找了半

太阳落土

妹妹找母

不怕

哥哥你回家

哥哥你手好凉

哥哥你哭了

妹妹你哪知道

哥哥心里好慌

那天

目光异

白太阳将我推倒

——流走

那天,我瘦

那天,我

那天,我空

那天,我多么慌

世界是一个透的网

 

 

______________________________

 

Wang Ping is a Chinese-American poet with over a dozen books to her name who lives in St. Paul, MN. See her webpage, WangPing.com.

 

See my reviews of her latest two poetry books at this post.

 

Monday, July 12, 2021

Box by Li Yun, tr. Wang Ping

 Box 

 by Li Yun, tr. Wang Ping

 

Child, please don’t open the box, no need to see everything in it

Not everything in this world needs to be understood

The box brings you good news, also death

I was too ignorant to follow the rule

I opened my mouth—I spoke

It was a grim day when I opened the box

Please remember the lesson

In reality, the box was empty. In fact,

The box was full…

Thunder descended, treasures opened, secrets revealed

Sunlight broke the window, ten thousand arrows through my heart

Plagues came in waves, conspiracy exposed, blood rained down

Mars invasion? A comet through the sky, a cry of a newborn

I was a box, I broke my own rule

I opened the box, I opened myself

To fly or stay put

But Child, the only thing I never regretted—

Is to open my mouth and speak

 

盒子

孩子,不要打开盒子,无看到全部

世上所有事物真相你不都弄清楚

盛在里面的西不都是吉讯还有噩耗

在我最懵懂,没恪守戒律

开口——说话

盒子被打开之是阴霾沉寂的日子

请铭记这个教

,盒子里是空的。其

盒子里是……

雷霆来了,藏宝展开,秘密被泄密

阳光也会来,推启窗,万箭穿心

瘟疫接踵而至,密被暴露,腥血雨

火星人来了?一流星悄然划儿一声 啼哭

我是一只盒子,我是自己的破戒者

打开盒子,打开自己

或存什么

孩子,我唯一的不悔是——开口说话

 

Li Yun serves as editor-in-chief of China's most influential monthly poetry journal 歌月刊,He is  a great poet and novelist himself. 

 

___________________________________________

 

 

Wang Ping is a Chinese-American poet with over a dozen books to her name who lives in St. Paul, MN. See her webpage, WangPing.com.

 

See my reviews of her latest two poetry books at this post.

Sunday, July 11, 2021

Lighthouse by Huang Lihai, tr. Wang Ping

Lighthouse 

 

by Huang Lihai, tr. Wang Ping

 

The lighthouse in the Baimao Sea

Its compass has stopped spinning in the territory 

A fisherman stands there

Remembering the moods of tropical storms 

Silence is bored with the retreating sea

The intricate waves in shadows are lonely, no more

Lavish gilded lace, up and down. Before you arrive

On a winter afternoon, the sea releases its thick fog

Sky spits white night

Yesterday becomes today

Clarity becomes chaos, a change of tunes

Silent waves echo between sky and earth

Fishing lights dim into the night one by one

Let’s seek ocean’s nature, let’s restore nature’s face

In the instance, a gaze in peace, a new path out of the maze

You see a light rising from the white sea

The lighthouse of words signals again, brilliantly

 

灯塔

白茅海的灯塔

它是个海域停止旋罗盘

一个赶海的老人站在那里

热带忧郁的

沉默倦于大海去的轰鸣

阴影中的浪多么寂寞,没有繁的金

起伏亮。冬日午后,在你到来之前

大海放出大,天空吐出白夜

把昨天与今天等同起来

从清晰到混沌,一种转调

天空与大地回着听不的涛声

就像一盏渔火接着一盏渔火的熄

去找回海浪的天,恢复自然本来的面目

一瞬,宁静中的凝,你的迷途遭遇了出路

你看白色海水升起了一柱光

词语中的灯塔重新亮出了烈的信号

 

_________________________________

 

 

Wang Ping is a Chinese-American poet with over a dozen books to her name who lives in St. Paul, MN. See her webpage, WangPing.com.

 

See my reviews of her latest two poetry books at this post.


 

Saturday, July 10, 2021

That’s Me in That Vine Chair by Gao Jiangang, tr. Wang Ping

That’s Me in That Vine Chair 

 

by Gao Jiangang, tr. Wang Ping

 

Winter scrawls crazy choreography on the window

A blue color on the plate

It’s ocean on the red-tiled roof

Oil barges take so long to sail by

Someone has been standing there, it’s a street light

Keeping the garden path quiet

A stone falls, that’s a sparrow

Then a school of cries drop

They’re the last leaves on trees

One of them stops on the window, but it’s just a lock

Keeping winter out

There’s a white shirt, oh, it’s a radiator

Pretending it’s another spring

There’s a face, oh a crystal clock

Running on imagined time

There’s a cloud, it’s steam from coffee

Reminding me of the fragrance in rain forests

There’s a glass of red wine, but it’s just burgundy floor

Brewing dawn between screen and table top

There’s a statue, that’s me in the vine chair

Trying to wake myself up

 

那是藤椅中的我

高建

冬天枝的狂草写

块调上的

,那是海

长时间才能通

有人立,那是路灯

保持花园小径的沉默

落下,那是麻雀

接着落下一群叫声

木唯一的叶儿

有一只停在窗上,那是塑

紧紧住冬天

有件白衫,那是暖气片

正虚构另外的春天

张脸,那是石英

记录着虚假时间

有片云,那是咖啡杯口的蒸气

我想起热带雨林的木香

有杯葡萄酒,那是暗色地板

示屏和桌面之演化着黎明

有件雕塑,那是藤椅中的我

正在着把自己

 

____________________________

 

Wang Ping is a Chinese-American poet with over a dozen books to her name who lives in St. Paul, MN. See her webpage, WangPing.com.

 

See my reviews of her latest two poetry books at this post.

Friday, July 9, 2021

Lingering at Hainan by Hei Feng, tr. Wang Ping

Lingering at Hainan 

 by Hei Feng, tr. Wang Ping

 

Today I just want a bowl of noodles

The coconut breeze is as soft as the southern music

A piece of glass, so blue

Peace between water and salt

Pieces of paper are flying

White birds whirling, more real than paper

In a space no one can reach

Deep sleep…

But today I

Just want a bowl of noodles

I enter the island through my last grains of rice from Hubei

I can’t deny: I see the island’s sky

“Swishing—“into the landscape of post-industrial country

But today

When the black screen is shut off from the “future”

Today all day

I gaze at the coconut. My attention goes

To the smooth coconut

--sour, perhaps

But I don’t care

For a whole day today, I feel clean

At dusk I borrow a bird nest for the night

I dream birds flying around my dreams

Kakakakaka

Birds didn’t return to their nest

I dream my dreams are hatching their eggs

A bird

Flying

In the sixth dimensional space

Tonight

I can’t close my eyes

Tonight

I think about the bird

More than my wife

Tonight I go over my “lessons” word by word

Tonight, I’m hungry, but I refuse to eat the eggs

The sun shines on me lightly

Like a beach in mirage, after the tide

I learn to wade into the hard water of the self

I wake up

The moon is high

The sun is shallow

 

逗留海南

一天,我只想吃一碗面

然椰与南韵柔

玻璃很

水与平静

然有一些

一些比更真的白

在触及不到的一片空

深睡眠……

然而,一天我

只想吃一碗面

我用最后的几粒湖北大米岛屿

不能否,我看岛屿的天空

——”的推的国家后工社会的前景

一天

在关前景的黑屏的一天

整整一天

我只端椰子。我只关心近

光滑椰子

——它也很酸

但我不怕

一整天,我干

傍晚我在岛语之外借鸟窝过

我梦见鸟嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎叫着袅绕着我的

梦境

鸟终夜不

我的梦孵化

一只

在第6

一夜

夜无眠

一夜我思念一只

胜过妻子

一夜我反复温

一夜,饥饿。但我不吃

太阳很浅地照我

犹如蜃气中的退潮的沙

我学并涉自己硬的水

我醒了

月亮很高

太阳很浅

 

Hei Feng is from Hubei, Black Harvest.

 

_______________________________________________

 

Wang Ping is a Chinese-American poet with over a dozen books to her name who lives in St. Paul, MN. See her webpage, WangPing.com.

 

See my reviews of her latest two poetry books at this post.

Terrence Folz Reading From "Bunt Burke"

  Terrence Folz's chapbook  Bunt Burke will appear from The Circulatory Press in August 2021. The above film features him reading some o...