New Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry

of the usually unintended outcomes of humanity’s own unwise

decisions. We are our own nature and our task is to understand just

that. In taking what is biologically essential to the continuation of the

species to be simulacra of pop music and stock market exchange, Yan

puts humans in their place; that place both shares endangerment with

other species and claims the high ground—the last man standing when

all else is lost. Thus Yan maneuvers between dire predictions of the

previous poem to more celebratory utterances, as in “Sun in the

Morning Market” (xO的¥阳):

You find yourself at the morning

market

carrying a bag of food

a bag of

a myriad seller’s calls,

a bag of

fat, protein and vitamins all

carefully calculated

A bag of

the weight of life.

For such a long time

I’m there at the intersection

tasting my life.

How natural, everyday

The sun carries a bag of its own light

(Yan 2004: 89)

In the first case, Yan is characteristically connecting oil, which humans

blithely draw from the natural environment at their peril, to human

sentiment. As with snow and mushrooms, which served as mirrors to

reflect upon ourselves more completely, oil is little more than an occa-

sion to observe the kinetic or psychologically motivating potential of

pain. In the second case, Yan the poet stands on a street corner, sur-

rounded by urban experience, but breaking down the contents of such

experience into financial exchange (bargain price) and biological

processes.^17 We can easily imagine a Yan Li painting from this poetic

image: bricks in hand, in the face of the sun and, though certainly

difficult to render, in the light contained in a bag the sun carries. The

bricks are that from which our bodies and economies, cities and solar

system are built.

In the context of contemporary Chinese poetry, perhaps the most

significant element of Yan’s work is that it travels well, as does, for

160 Paul Manfredi

Ÿ着在xO¾y着

z){

z

各Ïi样的}卖!

z

¼([打~的脂‚ƒ ̈„…†V‡

z

V\的ˆ¹

‰Š‰Š地

我‹Œ在Ž{味的V

>¡然

¥阳y着z的阳光

9781403976079ts10.qxp:Layout 1 11/9/07 11:10 AM Page 160