memorials designed to refer the reader to myriad elements of everyday
life, to fix in place those fragments of experience significant not for the
parts they play in any continuous narrative, but because their past
reality must be brought back in order to wholly constitute an identity
in the present. Through poetry, Sun reconstructs those things from
which the poet himself is made. The poems are, to cite the title work
of the series, Sun’s “1960s Bicycle,” objects that he fights to retain,
evokes in material detail, and uses as vehicles to revisit a past in the
process of fading away:
Mom bought a Red Flag bicycle, 妈妈²³qe! ́μ,
and put an end to my envy of ¶我· ̧î¹-Ö有的º慕。
the bike-owning few. ¼她½, ¾¿到我ÀZ, 在院¼
When her workday was over ÐÁ圈、Z街。
it was my turn to ride, 我ÄÅ的ÆÇ摁Ç>É。qrÊ
circle the courtyard, hit 成 3 我的物, ¶我到Ë-
the streets. 腰(ÍÎÏÇ
。qÐ在 ̄ÑlÒY,
I loved to make its bell ring À着我Ó着道èÔ, 我的Ç5
wild. For a time Õ到Ör;¼的×妒,
it was my plaything, and .我Ù来, ,我Û.,
I stood tall 我有ÚÛ, Ü.打¡来;
seeing people I knew. Once 我Þqg老à¢áâ的ãä,
at West End Stadium, 有,.åæ。所s<
$¤,
rounding the track proud, fast, 在我的¿0èr: 镀ê、³
I drew the jealousy ë刹、í圈。
of some boys, 我ÃâÀ着在村周þ的
who cut me off and demanded Z
the bike. Á来Á¤, ïd的物ðð³退。
I refused, we fought.
Like a tiger defending its cubs,
I would not give it up. And so,
many years later,
it gleams before me: chrome
handlebars, coaster
brake, 28-inch wheels.
I see myself pedaling around
New Railway Village
spinning, turning, all things beside
me rushing past and away.
(Jiang 2002: 35)
The poem is a story, but one whose brevity focuses down on the
culminating capture of a memory image: the bicycle whose possession
Poems of Yu Jian and Sun Wenbo 181