CHOI Lai Sheung. Whispers of the star. A collection of poems (Chinese-English bilingual). Translated by Zhang Zhizhong. Published by The Earth Culture Press (USA), August 2009, pages 247, price US $ 10.00. ISBN 978-0-9637599-6-5 / A.080

CHOI Lai Sheung, who writes short personal lyric poems, is a contemporary Chinese poet, born in Shishi City in Fujian Province but now settled in Hong Kong. The author of more than 70 books and editor-in-chief of the multilingual The World Poets Quarterly, she is also well versed in calligraphy and has an established reputation in gymnastics and fencing.

In reading her 100 translated poems, I find Choi a visionary romantic poet, with a mature aesthetic and poetic sense. Unlike many poets whose verses are flat and stale, Choi’s poems have a lot of lasting value – his verses are not only short and deep, but also perfect and meaningful. She fuses thoughts, feelings and emotions, with high and low of spirit, and shows of inner reality:

“How I can

Is imperfect

Be tolerated by my love

I am for beauty

But not beauty itself (p. 227)

Both Choi and Zhang Zhizhong achieve great spiritual wealth by creating and translating the last two lines of the poem ‘Imperfection’.

When the duo says: “Tenacity is kneaded in the lack of words / Silence runs with the tears of the heart” (p. 225); “Dreaming of spreading my heart wings / Flying to paradise / Fragrance of the mortal world” (p. 209); “The sea as passion / The rainbow as a brush / I dance and fly in the universe” (p. 189); “Only a rainbow stretch / In a disinterested round / Between heaven and earth” (p. 185); “I am a network in search and exploration / Launch into the unknown ocean” (p. 183); “The dream is a pure land / Where all hearts are equal” (p. 175); “Rivers and lakes stretch to infinity / Water and sky share the same color” (p. 165); “The difficult situation of existence will be / Conquered underfoot” (p. 137); “To grow a pot of smiles / From there / Through winds and rains / Concern and passion retain” (p. 131); and “Raise the historical trauma to the sky / To wash away the brilliant aspiration of the time” (p. 105); I feel an awareness above my head, or the mantric effect a la Sri Aurobindo, the famous Indian poet-philosopher.

Zhang Zhizhong must have found CHOI a difficult poet to translate, particularly because of his spiritual awareness that evades the exact expression in English. However, he has completed the challenging task so well that I feel a sense of satisfaction reading Choi’s verses in English. Both poets (the translator is also a prominent name in contemporary Chinese poetry with considerable experience in bilingual literature, language and film) succeed in piercing “the fence of time and space / and transcending the border of nations” ( p. 177), thanks to his labor of love and commitment to human unity, universal peace and happiness.

Reading Choi’s poetry is like experiencing a rise to the nobility of love, life, nature, and simplicity. She reflects an inner culture, the quintessence of the Chinese spirit, which is always inspiring and always renewing:

“It is not necessary to sing songs that sound good

No need to compose melodious music

Great passion and excitement

Bring the shine to the end “(p. 159)

Has a sense of purpose and mission: self-discovery and discovery of the world. With his wings of heart, he rises between heaven and earth (cf. p. 123) and expresses his unity with nature: “so many wonders of the sea / so many wonders of mine” (p. 111). Elsewhere, she says that with a triumphant heart she files and flits “towards heroism and righteousness / Between heaven and earth” (p. 149), and climbs a new height in her consciousness: “I will / Prove my position / With my steepness / Integrity “(p. 155). It sounds like Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri when he states: “Straight and upright is the strength of character” and “Climbing and ascending is moral integrity” (p. 147). For her, evolution means awakening the self or elevating life and existence to a higher level of consciousness. Unity, harmony and love are its keynotes.

Like a yogi, with perfect inner discipline, Choi “takes the pen like a hoe / To plow fertile land in silence / So that the seeds break the ground and sprout” (p. 145). It is with an evolving soul consciousness, “standing beauty” and an “unwavering floral spirit” that he seeks to prove his own individual existence.

Choi Lai Sheung’s excellence lies in her freshness in each poem. It does not imitate the past, nor does it think or feel in any pre-established way. As she admits, she is a “laborer” trying to “reach perfection along with the inclination and the seasons / To bring fruit upon fruit” (p. 23). His poetic genius strikes an excellent balance between what is conventionally available in some of the best Chinese lyrical poetry and what we have been reading in contemporary English poetry elsewhere. With his new insights into the nature of human experiences, the reality of “a colorful life” richly appeals to our senses, imagination, emotion, and intellect.

Dr. Zhang Zhizhong, as a translator, seems to have worked really hard to demonstrate how well the various materials of Choi’s poem integrate and how successful it has been in proportion to its tight structure. Each word he chooses appears as the correct word, if not the staked word, to express the poet’s full meaning. The diction and images are not trivial but fresh. It is to his credit that in his English interpretation there is no conflict between the sound of the poem and its meaning. The images and ideas are arranged so effectively that any rearrangement would result in damage to the poem or its form and content. I wholeheartedly appreciate the positive excellence of both CHOI and Zhang Zhi. Both deserve worldwide recognition.

–RKSINGH