A note of the surreal provides uneasy completion to a brief ten-line
poem describing a Red Guard raid on the child’s home:
a little nothing for my mother’s qg香皂 ̈ 我ª«¬脸的;® ̄
face a box with soap °qgs±²的³ ́μH
stamped under the heel of a ¶的q·破¹
Liberation sneaker º色的»¼
cracked open v½物的¿球
the green soap °挤¥来
popped out
like a plant’s eyeball
(Yu 2004b) (Yu 2003: 108)
At the close of another short poem, Yu combines bizarre imagery with
anticlimax. As the child furtively peers into a crack behind a big-
character poster pasted to one of Kunming’s ancient pagodas,
someone shouted What are you 有-Á道 ÃÄ Ã！
looking at 吓Ç我È即t¹
I was so startled that winter qrÊ天ËÌÍZ来
popped out of my cracked back -Î着Ï Ä }Ã的
he laughed Nothing to see Ð面z砖头
only bricks inside
(Yu 2004b) (Yu 2003: 116)
Finally, poetic device and sudden revelation cross paths most intensely
in “The Beautiful Woman Lived Upstairs” ÓÔ的女-x在我Ö×Z
where incantatory repetition of the phrase “the beautiful woman”
ÓÔ的女-heightens almost to abstraction the remembered desire for
an older female piano player. Yu, however, breaks the spell of his
words to conclude the poem with a surreal vision that leaves the
poem’s tenuous story line tragically unresolved:
summer became beautiful roses I天ÓÔ¡来 Ø瑰SÓÔ¡来
beautiful 我的i
ÓÔ¡来
my teen years beautiful ÓÔ的女-ÓÔ地Ã着Ú天
the beautiful woman looked ÓÔ的女-ÓÔ地Ã着i
at the blue sky beautifully ÓÔ的女-Û我qrÜÝ
the beautiful woman looked ÓÔ的女-Þßàá的â指
at the boy beautifully 摸¥摸我的脸 G rI天
the beautiful woman gave me an apple 我的=a ËåæçZèé¡来
the beautiful woman reached out 她z女- 我z男ì
her featherlike finger 我íî她Ïq男-的e
to touch my face ah that summer 我ïð{Ï 我ï在ñ着;<
176 John A. Crespi