2023

June 2022

This month we are delighted to post new Qing Ping poems by Gerda Cadostin, a beautiful and much appreciated Haitian voice. The poems are written in her mother-tongue, and self-translated.  

In the "Opinions" page, we would like to draw your attention to Gerda Cadostin's very refreshing book "Let the madness run". We shared her interview with Radio France Internationale.  

Also, we thank to Gabrielle Parker who recommended a very interesting article "Projections in the Haiku Manner: Richard wright, T.S.Eliot, and Transpacific Modernism" by Anita Patterson.  

Ying Chen continues the translation of "The nineteen old poems" (see previous months' posts for description). Seemingly appeared before 200 ACE, during a very unstable time, the poems were probably written by women authors. That is why, maybe, they are anonymous.   For the poem translated in French, aspects of syntaxes are explained. For the one in English, tonic and rime pattens are indicated. With these "Nineteen old poems", simple and naïve, should we say, was started a long tradition of poetry of unique aesthetics.   

May 2022

This month we are honoured to show the poems by Colette Poggi, extracts from "L'Arbre des nuits". She kindly translated them into Sanscrit with Devanagari characters.  The poems are also accompanied with a magnificent watercolor by the author. 

In the "Opinions" page, we would like to draw your attention to a book by Colette Poggi, a remarkable mind.  And also a book by Eric Baret, presented by Colette Poggi.

And we shared a Tibetan song.  

Ying Chen continues to translate "The nineteen old poems 古诗十九首". In order to respect the rythme of the poems, for the elements that would be too long to be included in a English / French version, the translator will simply put in a side note about the concerned words or their combination that could have multiple meanings. 

In this website, except the work of Qu Yuan 屈原， only short form of much codified poetry (Lü Shi 律诗）is treated，because this is where we meet more difficulties in translating. However, during the same era as the "The nineteen  old poems 古诗十九首" (around the end of second century ACE, see Isola Poetry April 2022),  long form of poetry, or poetical essais were classified as Fu 赋。Two major differences between Shi 诗 and Fu 赋 are that, in ancient times, the first was chanted, while the second, even though still somehow codified in different ways at different epochs, was only recited and had no limitations of the number of verses.  

If we compare "Fu 赋" to a flower bed, we would say "Lü Shi 律诗" resembles to a Penzai 盆栽。    

April 2022

This month, in the occasion of Qing Ming Jie (清明节), a holiday for people to pay visit to the lost closest ones, 须勤 (Xu Qing) wrote us two poems from Shanghai, a city hard hit by the new wave of covid for now.  

In the "Opinions" page, Xu Qin sent us a video "Drumming  in the temple of Yu Fo", recorded at early April. And also a very recent dance performance "The blues only 只此清绿".   

Ying Chen started to translate "The nineteen old poems 古诗十九首”. These anonymous poems look similar from style to content to the Yue Fu songs. So they are also called "Yue Fu Poems 乐府诗”。They are supposedly written by the scholars living in the decades before the fall of Han Dynastie (汉朝）happened around the year 196.   

The collection was edited and published by 萧统 Xiao Tong（501-531），prince of the kingdom of Liang 梁国 (today's Nanjing region). There were several small kingdoms established in the south of Chang Jiang River （长江）, from 420 to 589, under the group name given by the historians as Southern Dynasty 南朝。At the same time, the northern part of the country was occupied by other kingdoms collectively named as Northern Dynasty 北朝。Dyed young, 萧统 Xiao though left sixty volumes of selected ancient literary work "昭明文选”，in an effort to note, categorize and preserve about eight hundred years' of writings till his time. Certainly, for the editor, the "Nineteen old poems 古诗十九首” made five centuries earlier in a turbulent epoch had a resonance in his own shaking world.   

The poetry  translation is powerless facing the pictogram, therefore largely reductive. The pictural effects had been an essential part of Chinese poetry from antiquity till early twentieth century. To have an idea how visually it appears the poem, only just in printing form and not yet calligraphic, we could have a look at the original version in the page "繁忙的日子“。We made a routine to put the original version of each translated piece in that page, as a necessity. 

March 2022

This month we are very happy to post a poem by Paul Matthew St Pierre, together with one of his paintings from his substantial collection.

After translating a selection of ancient songs from Yue Fu (乐府），Ying Chen presented here a very small sample of contemporary Chinese songs. She translated into French "Walking through the fields" 陇上行，musique and words by artists from Taiwan, and also a piece made by a musician from Sichuan: "A rainy night in the mountains of Ba ". She translated into English "Coolen fireworks" by the poet Fang Wenshan (方文山）who wrote:  

 "... That history book 

Never tolerated tenderness 

All is written with much cruelty 

Fireworks are easy to kill 

People and events, easy to divide 

But you are asking 

If I am serious 

A thousand years later 

Feelings are accumulated 

Who will still be waiting 

And yet, that blue book of history 

how can it be wrong..."  

In the "Opinions" page, we would like to draw your attention to the web gallery of Paul St Pierre -- a truly peculiar artistic world.  

We also have the pleasure to share with you the performances of all three translated songs: "Walking through the fields 陇上行" performed  in 1984 by Zhang Minming 张敏明 from 香港 Xiang Gang ( Mandarin pronunciation for Hong Kong), “A rainy night in the mountains of Ba 巴山夜雨" performed by Bai Shui 白水 from 四川 （Sichuan province ), "Coolen fireworks 烟花易冷"  performed by 降央卓玛 from 西藏  Xi Zang (Mandarin pronunciation for  Tibet). 

February 2022

 This month, to celebrate the Agriculture Calendar New Year (农历新年） and also Yuan Xiao 元宵节 （the fifteenth day of the traditional new year) a buddhist holiday, we are delighted to be able to post here the poems of Dai Yu 戴宇 -- a well published poet, of Tian Hong 天宏 and 刘澎 Liu Peng -- two much appreciated artists, and of Xu Qin, an important voice for us.  

A special thank to Xu Qin for translating Dai Yu's poems, and to Dany Filion for translating Liu Peng's poems. 

 Ying Chen ends her translation of selected Yue Fu folkloric songs with "Mulin" (木兰诗). 

 In the "Opinions" page, we recommended a work by the philosopher and sinologue François Julien: Silent Transformations. His work is translated into Chinese by Esther Lin from Taiwan. We would also share a fascinating interview by France Culture with François Julien about the otherness. 

January 2022

We are very happy to start the new year with poèmes by Yves Bergeret, an extract from his very strong work: "Poème Lion-Galet", accompanied with a photography by the author made in the mountains at Die, in Southern France.

Ying Chen translated a folkloric tale "Peafowls flying to the south-west". This sad love story was circulating orally, maybe in chanted form, then it was collected in "Yue Fu 乐府". We noticed all sentences are of five syllables 五言，a fashionable writing style at the dawn of the commun era. The story might have been scripted by anonymous scholars working for Yue Fu 乐府 ("house of music and songs") - the very first ministry of arts in the country.

In the "Opinions" page, we would like to draw your attention to Yves Bergeret's fascinating blog "Carnet de la langue-espace".

Ying Chen recommended a speech by Wu Tong 吴彤 who talked about an ancient instrument Sheng 笙. During the speech he performed a traditional piece, plus the music he composed for an American movie, using 笙.

December 2021

We are excited to end the year with Qing Ping poems by Mauricio Segura. Born in Chile, grown up in Montréal, he is well established Canadian writer. We thank Mauricio Segura for a photographie he made when he travelled back to his native country, we use it to replace the picture on our homepage.

Ying Chen translated another two songs from Yue Fu 乐府.

In the "Opinions" page, we would like to draw your attention to a novel by Mauricio Segura: "Eucalyptus".

And we wish you a happy New Year, by sharing an amazing performance of Bach's music played with Chinese instruments, recommended by a friend reader 蒙田 Meng Tian.

Noveùber 2021

This month, our talented bilingual poet, Xu Qin, comes back with a beautiful Qing Ping poem "Dunhuang", written after her visit to 敦煌 Dunhuang, the ancient grottoes in today's Gansu Province, the once prosperous and cosmopolitan region at Tang epoch.

We want the site to be a garden of languages. In "Isola Poetry" page, if a poem appears in more than one language, it is self translated, unless otherwise noticed. 

Ying Chen translated more Yue Fu 乐府 songs. She noticed while, among the Chinese ancient poems preserved till today, the majority is made by well educated and titled male authors, quite an amount of songs gathered in Yue Fu collection (乐府歌辞) seem to be written by anonymous ancient women.

In the "Opinions" page, Xu Qin wrote about the fate of Dunhuang  relics at the beginning of XXe century, at the fall of Qing Dynasty.

We recommended a very well made Japanese documentary about 敦煌Dunhuang.  

We would like to present a poem by Mohamed Mallal. Professor of visual arts in Quazzarrat, wellknown in southern Maroc, he practices various art forms, and is also an interpretor of amazigh language. We are absolutely trilled by its version in Tifinagh, the most ancient language, as we know so far. We attached a photo of it, for your contemplation. 

We are also pleased to be able to show you a poem by Senam Demirkan, written in Turkish and self-translated into English. 

Ying Chen translated into English « Oh the Highest 上邪» (from the section ‘Songs and airs for drums and flutes’ of « Yue Fu Songs 乐府歌辞 » ), and into French « The one who occupies my mind 有所思». The corresponding original versions can be found in the page "繁忙的日子“。Ying Chen continues to record her country life in Qing Ping form。

In the « Opinions » page, we wish you would enjoy a popular song « Bright flowers », a bilingual performance by 玉米提 Umit from Xing Jiang.

And we shared an article in French about the preservation of Xinjiang’s very poetical tchagatay manuscripts.

It is our immense pleasure to show here  the poetry of Zinaida Zavadskaia, translated by her daughter Natasha Zavadskaia, and also the poetry of Natasha Zavadskaia herself. While the works of both are equally beautiful, you would probably notice their difference in style, state of mind and vision. We are very much enchanted by these exquisite verses.

Accompanying the poems, the photo is made by Natasha Zavadskaia as well, a sublime beauty, her birth place Carélie .

Ying Chen continues to translate the ancient folkloric Yue Fu Songs 乐府歌辞:

-  In French, she is presenting an anti-war song “Battles” 战城南 (from the section « Songs and airs for drums and for flutes 鼓吹曲辞»). 

-  And in English, « So high is the Sorceler Mountain 巫山高 », about a migrant’s sorrow.

In the “opinions” page, we shared a Russian love song “An Evening outside of Moscow”, a song known by literally everyone in China, a bilingual performance in 2018 by the famous, aged 77 at the time, Yang Hong-Ji. 

We recommended the books by Antoine Volodine, telling stories about post apocalyptical world. This is in our sense one of the most unusual voices in contemporary literature. His work is translated into English and studied in China.

This month we are glad to show poems by Ook Chung. Born in Japan from Korean parents, living in Canada since the age of two, he had very troublesome school experiences as an Asian young boy in a situation of being minority. Today he is considered as one of the most brilliant and singuliar writer in Canada and  abroad.

Ying Chen has translated a Yue Fu Song 乐府歌,  « Journey to the west陇西行» . The form of five words five syllabes 五言is confirmed here, it will be followed and practiced by the next generations of poets. Those who haven’t read our previous posts could find in « What is new » for March, some explanations of Yue Fu Songs.

People may find it strange that it took centuries for the verses to move from four syllabes to five syllabes, but this is how the Chinese written language, at least its poetical language, was initially formed : it works less as a flow of water, as the record or the transcript of speech, than as a painting where are combined in various way the existing words which are images themselves. The best future poems would achieve their extraordinary beauty not only because of the actual meaning of the words, but also through their combination, through the unspoken between the words, between the lines, between the sounds. After the ancient Chinese language was reformed at the dawn of the 20th century, consisting mainly in linking the writting more to the speech, the modern Chinese language still contains relatively few fixed vocabulary, it still works as a lego where the game of variation of symbols seems to be as free as infinite.

The original poems in Chinese  can be found in the page “繁忙的日子“。

In the « Opinions » page, we would like to draw your attention to two books by Ook Chung :  L’Expérience interdite and Trilogie coréenne.

We shared a link about South Korea people’s strong reaction to Japan’s decision of Fukushima nuclear water dumping.

Finally we wish you would enjoy a traditional Korean song performed in its original version by the famous singer Huo Zun 霍尊.

For the month of May which is now named as “Asian Heritage Month” in Canada, our thoughts are for the people and the culture of India that have profound and lasting influence on most part of the Eastern Asia. It is our honour to show here, the extracts in both French and Sanskrit from “The tree of the nights”, a collection of poems by Colette Poggi, specialist of Indian culture. 

Ying Chen translated two ancient Yue Fu Songs (乐府歌辞)： into French,  an extract from“Mo Shang Sang 陌上桑 (Mulberry road)”，a chanted story about a beautiful married farmer laday who refuses the advances of a wealthy man travelling in the region ; into English,  “Hao Lu 蒿露 (The Dew on the grass) ”，a song for funerals. The choice of the pieces are made for their variety, and for their authentic folklorical nature, their belonging to the ancient oral tradition. 

According to Professor Jiang Yun 蒋韵 who teaches in Taiwan, today there still exist, in some part of Northern China, local artists who would sing a story so long that it lasts for days.

 « Mo Shang Sang » is among one of the earliest writings that follow the rule of five words and five syllabes for all verses. A form called « poetry of five words 五言诗» will be practiced by the contemporary and the future poets, with further limitation of the number of verses, usually till a maximum of eight. Chinese poetry since its beginning tends to be minimalist and formalist.

In the “Opinions” page,  which is now placed right after the "Busy days" page, Jeanne Pham Tran, editor of The Equator Publishing House, presented “Bhagavad Gîtâ”, a book where Colette Poggi presented this ancient tale which is, in many ways, fundamentally important even today.

We included a radio interview where Colette Poggi provided in depth explanations about this epic poem, an important piece in the history of thinking.

Also in the page of “Opinions”, Isola Poetry shared an impressive lecture by Dr Vandana Shiva, “The food of the future”, made in 2014 at Arizona University

This month we are delighted to share a poem by Dai Yu 戴宇 describing the end of the winter season. 

Born in Shanghai, graduated from Fudan University in sciences, working and living in Japan since 1991, Dai Yu has published two much praised collections of poems: “The Snow beyond the world”《世界之外的雪》and “A Spring graved on the wall”《刻在墙上的春天》.  We thank to Xu Qin who translated for us Dai Yu’s poems into English.

Ying Chen continues to translate Yue Fu (乐府) songs which are the origins of the Chinese ancient poetry and are still influencing the writing of today’s popular Chinese songs. 

In the « Opinions » page, Isola Poetry presented two « free verses» poems by Dai Yu. His work is a show case of contemporary Chinese poets who write modern style verses, while deeply formed with classic poetry and able to write in ancient form, such as the Qing Ping (清平乐) 。

Also in the « Opinions » page, in the occasion of April’s « Earth Day », Ying Chen, author of  the book « Radiance » published in French in 2021, would like to draw attention to an article by « The Diplomat» regarding the very troublesome and unsolved Fukushima disaster. Japan declaired this month its intention to dump un estimated 1.4 milion tones of much questioned nuclear waste water into the Pacific ocean.

We are very moved to receive from Carl Strömbäck his poems with intense light and silence. He started to write poetry after a second  stroke that partially paralised him. He found back his strength through writing and has been animating a poetry club. We are thankful to Françoise Sule for the translation.

Ying Chen started to translate a selection of songs belonging to Yue Fu (乐府诗)。Those songs were in fashion during the epoches of Qin, of Han and of Wei Jing North and South (221BCE-581ACE). A ministry of the culture (乐府) was first established during the Qin Dynasty, expanded by future emperors, with the tasks to collect the popular and folkloric songs from different regions, to put them in order, to add on the musical notes, to use them at praying ceremonies,  and to organize chanting and dancing shows. While the musical books are lost, lots of written songs  have remained, thanks to their publication during the Han Epoch, around the year 200.

Song North epoch （around year 1000) republished Yue Fu songs and poems (100 volumes, 5400 songs and poems divided under 12 musical forms), reflecting the aspiration of that time to « return to the sources ».

It will take an entire year to translate little by little the anomynous writings of Yue Fu, which largely influenced the poets for generations to come. 

Some tend to gather the anomynous songs and the poems written by well-known poets according to the same musical airs under one same catagorie as Yue Fu Poetry. Yet, Ying Chen chooses to make a distinction between songs 歌 and poems 诗, although the two are closely related and today a combined word 诗歌 is used to designate poetry. For example, one writes 诗, but one performs a 诗歌 reading. 

The Yue Fu songs being still quite narrative and closer to the spoken language, they can be translated in a straight forward way. But the poems written according to Yue Fu musical airs would be composed with a different spirit. It was more a matter of the forms than of the meanings. They were often presented as a stylistic work, or as a method for meditation, or as an internalized architecture similar to Penzai 盆栽 （planting in a plate), just like most futur Chinese classical poems that often deconstruct the syntax. Considerations about the language structure are therefore more than necessary, while translating. The translator will come back with details to this very crucial topic after she will finish translating the songs.

In the « Opinions » page, Françoise Sule presents, in French, a quite surprising book by Elin Anna Labba : « Herrarna satte oss hit. Om tvangsförflyttningarna i Sverige» (« Those men who moved us here – the forced displacement in Sweden »).

Ying Chen would recommand the most recent interview made by Etienne Klein about the soul of the iceberg.

We are begining the year, here, with a sequence of very impressive poems: that grace facing the extermination of the body ; that after-life in the form of words and images. The pomes are composed in both Michif (a Metis dialect) and English. The author, Chris Harris, was raised by his Metis grandmother, while his mother had to work in the mills. Chris Harris’s artistic world is quite uncommon to our view. The accompanying image is section from his painting entitled as « Metis Poem ». His numerous past shows include NeoPersona Gallery (New York) and Grand Forks Art Gallery (Grand Forks). 

Ying Chen is presenting extracts from two poems of Chu style (楚辞), by Qu Yuan (屈原340-278BCA)。Minister and diplomate of the Kingdom of Chu (楚国927-223BCA), at a time where his kingdom was challenged by the northern kingdom of Qin (秦国)，Qu Yuan’s advises were repeatedly rejected by the corrupted court and he was forced to leave. Two years after Qin’s army conquered Chu’s capital city, the poet terminated his own life in the river of Xiang (湘江)。

In the « Opinions » page, we shared the website of our much appreciated artist Chris Harris.

In the same page, as a memorial to Fu Cong (1934-2020) who, on December 28, 2020, passed away of Covid19 in London, great pianist and considered as one of Chopin’s best interpretrers, son of the famous Fu Lei who translated many French authors, Isola Poetry shared an interview with Fu Cong made by Polish Music Institute in September 2015. The pianist said he was « still trying hard, digging into the truth », because he felt he was still far from it.

In her page in Chinese, Ying Chen shared Scarlatti’s Sonate 108, performed by Fu Cong, in 1968, two years after the suicide of his both dignified parents in 1966. Plus an extremely interesting interview with him conducted by Anthony Wang (the recording quality isn’t very good), where Fu Cong commented on the contemporary ever more superficial world.