This poem (in translation) by Wang Yin, a Chinese poet from Shanghai, aptly captures the smoothness of time, memory and dreams. It reminds me that one of the things I love about poetry is its ability to operate outside of time, or even subvert time. Line breaks can also expand the meaning (even in translation): the word “core,” the phrase “core revolution,” and the noun “revolution” are all possibilities because of a simple fraction after the word “core.” There is a narrow metaphor in the last lines of this poem that makes a comment about our fickle times, and even the stars are not united in their beliefs. Selected by Victoria Chang
Finally there is yesterday
By Wang Yin, translated by Andrea Lingenfelter
finally there is yesterday
finally there is anger
dreams now have a core
revolution finally looks like normal life
this day and last night are finally buried entwined together
youth disappeared from this world
the whole idea of youth gone from this world
the horn of the storm resembles a tilted cup
night mirror no longer outlines me as a ghost
a clean world is useless to me
silent stones, my teachers
those soft talents
who abide by the fate arranged for them
bow to this evil prophecy
go on a journey they will never complete
I, we, this changing age of ours
every star follows its own god
when it turns its head
Victoria Chang is a former Guggenheim colleague whose fifth collection of poems, “Obit” (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), was named a DailyExpertNews Notable Book and a Time Must-Read. It received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for poetry. Her nonfiction book, “Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence and Grief,” was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the MFA program at Antioch University. Wang Yin is a Chinese poet, journalist, and photographer whose works include “Ghosts City Sea” (published by Seaweed Salad Editions in conjunction with Yilin Press, 2021), from which this poem is taken, and the upcoming “A Summer Day in the Company of Ghosts “includes” (New York Review Books, 2022).
