Zhang Yé graduated from Fudan University and is presently a professor of literature at Shanghai University, a member of the Writers' Association of China, director of the Writers' Association of Shanghai and director of the Poetry Academy of China. Her publications include The Poetess' Love, The Colorful World, The Green Crown, Anthology of Zhang Ye: Songs on the Road of Life and a prose collection entitled Solitude Is a Song of Nature. Her writings have been included in many anthologies and in several literary dictionaries. Some of her work has been translated into English, French, German, Japanese, Romanian and Irish. Sirena: Poetry, Art and Criticism (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001:1), published her work in Spanish for the first time, edited by Jorge R. G. Sagastume.
Confused Days
Eighteen. Gale force rising. Eighteen.
The heart of the fire.
Storm-fanned flames lick at eighteen-year-olds.
But my storm passed quickly, contemptuously,
As if I was no more than a drop of water.
(Translated by Elizabeth Strayer, China)
Outside Shànghai
Escape from the city's vortex,
From the screech of that huge spinning top.
Sink into a green, marshy bed.
White geese float dreamily through the blue.
Rice-shoots sing so lightly that nobody understands,
Although they nod to me as if to say
We know that this is what you like to hear.
These are cadences rippling with comfort,
Fantasias on white-blossomed branches
That sway at their ease on the hawthorns.
Here is music sweet enough to break your heart.
(Translated by Elizabeth Strayer, China)
