Encountering kindred spirits in Sinophone poetry: Q&A with Yilin Wang
Meet the poet-translator of ‘The Lantern and the Night Moths’ — a bestseller of modern Mandarin Chinese poetry — and the five poets from this anthology
In “The Lantern and the Night Moths (燈與夜蛾),” poet-translator Yilin Wang (王藝霖) has fashioned an illuminating window into the vast realm of Sinophone poetry by selecting works that reflect different facets of modern Mandarin Chinese literature. Her accompanying essays and footnotes are equally enlightening in their explanations of the intricate literary references and the classic and contemporary imagery evoked by the Sinophone world. The five featured poets — a cross-dressing revolutionary (born Oct. 11, 1875), an art gallery curator (born Feb. 1978), an enigmatic wordsmith (born Nov. 9, 1901), a multilingual translator (born March 5, 1905) and a grassroots poet (born 1974) — hail from a period of time spanning nearly 150 years, from the late Qing dynasty to a post-Republic China, yet their sorrows and joys and ephemeral existence remain very much palpable and soul-stirring today. To read Wang’s translations is to be transported to a shared moment with its author, to meet a kindred spirit, a zhiyin (知音), across time and language.
THE POETS
QIU JIN (秋瑾, 1875–1907): Shaoxing poet, revolutionary, and contemporary of Dr. Sun Yat-sen (孫中山), the founder of the Republic of China. Her vehement desire for men to recognize women as equals is enshrined at the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei, where she is the only woman to be memorialized on the shrine’s wrap-around corridor of otherwise male martyr statues that retell the story of how less than five years after her death the Republic of China government was established at Nanjing, China in 1912 and retreated to Taiwan in 1949.
Notably, the statue depicts her hair styled after Japan’s Edo-era fashion — voluminous bangs upswept into an elegant topknot, strands tucked in and held in place with a long hair pick, finished with a nape bun sitting above the neck. It was an androgynous look preferred by the feminist poet who called upon her fellow women to unchain their mangled “lotus” feet, for many had their feet forcefully bound at a young age due to their families’ desire to present their daughters as a respectable marriage prospect.
Qiu preached as a writer and orator for women to regain their independence from men through education and self-investment, and to take ownership of their livelihoods while also shouldering half the collective responsibility in reforming society and advancing the wellbeing of the nation. She once wrote of the plight of women in late Qing-era China:
“Her existence has to be lithe and convivial, her frustrations consumed in silence. Her tears fall with increasing frequency as favors are dependent on the kindness bestowed by those around her; a life of imprisonment, a slave in refinements!
Those floral accessories are but jade shackles and gold pillories, those fine textiles are but silken ropes and embellished restraints; servants are but gaolers and as for the husband, he is the very warden of your jail, his commanding mood dictates your every move!” (*my rough translation)
「身兒一定柔柔順順的媚著，氣兒也是悶悶的受著，淚珠是常常的滴著，生活是巴巴結結的做著，一世的囚徒，半身的牛馬！
這些花兒朵兒，好比玉的鎖金的枷，那些綢緞，好比錦的繩繡的帶，將你束縛得緊緊的；那些奴僕，真是牢頭禁子看守著，那丈夫不必說，就是間官的獄使了，凡百命令皆要聽他一人喜怒了！」
Despite a genteel upbringing in a literati-official clan with roots from Zhejiang — it is said that she spent a handful of childhood months in Taiwan when her father was stationed in Qing-era Taipei as magistrate, and her daughter who became an US-trained aviation expert was later buried here as well — the well-educated elite was a powerful horse rider and drinker who preferred a blade over a sewing needle. Leaving behind an arranged marriage and two kids in 1904, Qiu pawned her jewelry to seek further education in Japan, where she met the overseas revolutionaries who recruited her.
A frequent crossdresser flaunting both men’s robes and western suits, founding editor of a feminist publication, and head of an anti-imperial movement’s Zhejiang faction, Qiu’s free-spirited existence was cut short at the age of 32 — she was beheaded by dynastical Qing authorities as a revolutionary traitor. Under nom de plumes including “Swordswoman of Mirror Lake (鑑湖女俠)” and “Contender Among Men (競雄),” Qiu crafted over 200 poems during her brief but prolific life. In “The Lantern and the Night Moths,” Yilin Wang has chosen to include “A River of Crimson (滿江紅)” that reveals the depths of Qiu’s passionate being:
ZHANG QIAOHUI (張巧慧, 1978- ): Zhejiang poet, art gallery curator, and recipient of the Sanmao Literary Essay Prize (三毛散文獎), a competition organized by Chinese magazine “People’s Literature (人民文學)” and named after the late Taiwanese writer Echo Chen Ping (陳平). Echoing the themes of seclusion and displacement that permeated Chen’s writings, Zhang believes that the life of a poet is one of solitude, yet “literature is where countless lonely souls connect across time and space (文學讓無數孤獨的心靈穿越時空心心相印).”
In her quest to rediscover and preserve fragments of loneliness from days long past, Zhang seeks out ancient sites and cultural relics for her stone-rubbing collection. Historic buildings and Buddhist pagodas are also brought to life through her poetry, such as her musings over China’s oldest surviving private library. The archives of Tiānyī Gé (天一閣) date back to 1561, housing at its peak 70,000 volume of antique books, of which 65 are now conserved at the Taipei-based National Central Library.
When Zhang received the 2016 Yu Lihua Youth Literature Award (於梨華青年文學獎), she was welcomed to the stage with this statement of praise:
“Displaying her unique sensibilities at the altar of poetry, her mastery of the language is clear and exact. Building upon her deep knowledge of poetry, Zhang sharpens her craft by exploring — exploring the world around us, the spiritual and emotional within us, and the very meaning of language itself.” (*my rough translation)
「她的語言乾淨、簡練，在詩歌的臨界點保持自己特有的美學原則。她對詩有著深刻的理解並進行了多方面的探索，對外觀照現實，對內觀照心靈，並對語言本身進行探索。」
The Mandarin language has no verbal conjugations, meaning poet-translators like Yilin Wang have to thoughtfully scrutinize contextual clues embedded within the original text. The loving but arduous process is revealed in a personal essay accompanying her translations of Zhang’s poems: “I must guide it with gentle hands to ensure its spirit is kept alive and intact during this transformative, and often excruciating process. So much care and sensitivity are required to ensure a poem survives as it is reborn into a new language, screaming, kicking, and crying.”
FEI MING (廢 名, 1901–1967): Hubei poet, professor, and writer whose artistic caliber was admired by diplomats such as Hu Shih (胡適), who once served as the ROC’s ambassador to the United States, and George K.C. Yeh (葉公超), a former head of the ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Peking University professor. In a memoir, Yeh wryly recounted how “like many others dedicated to scholarly pursuits, Fei Ming would often skip class (馮文炳（廢名）經常曠課，有一種名士風度).”
Born Feng Wenbing, Fei Ming’s chosen pen name personifies the elusive nature of his literary works. Given how Fei (廢) can mean redundancy, ineptness, or termination depending on context, Fei Ming can be interpreted as “worthless name” or “one without a name” — the vagueness and vast possibilities of his wordplay are intentional, for he took inspiration from the enigmatic literature of Chinese poets like Li Shangyin (李商隱) and Wen Tingyun (溫庭筠) and sought to reinvigorate and build upon classic Sinophone poetry traditions.
When Yeh was at Peking University, Fei Ming was his student. When Yeh was editor of the “Crescent Moon (新月月刊)” magazine, he would often solicit Fei Ming for submissions. Hence the latter submitted essays, poems, and even novellas. In his late years in Taiwan, Yeh would recall:
“Fei Ming is a highly stylized writer. His characters are often based on his societal and daily observations, and fabricated from his personal life experiences and understanding of culture; they are personal constructs who are molded and shaped as he sees fit. In his mind, these fictitious people are more genuine than most people we see on a daily basis. Fei Ming is a wordsmith, for his essays and poems are equally inimitable.” (*my rough translation)
「廢名是個極特殊的作家，他的人物，往往是在他觀察過社會、人生之後，以他自己對人生，對文化的感受，綜合塑造出來的，是他個人意想中的人物，對他而言，比我們一般人眼中所見的人更真實。廢名也是一個文體家，他的散文與詩都別具一格。」
The romantic yet spiritual nature of his words, his attempts to encapsulate one moment in time, and his emphasis on the emotive have not only been expertly translated by Yilin Wang in “The Lantern and the Night Moths,” her collection’s title is a nod to Fei Ming’s poem “lantern (燈).”
XIAO XI (小西, 1974- ): Shandong poet, nature lover, and illustrator of her own poetry collections. As a grassroots poet who was inspired by the words of others to start writing, Xiao Xi has no formal literary training but instead takes inspiration from daily life, the seaside of her hometown Qingdao, classics like “Romance of the Western Chamber (西廂記),” western films including “Schindler’s List,” and even the iPhones made by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn.
Her observations are astute, yet her words unaffected. Embedded within Xiao Xi’s poems are socioeconomic commentary on greed, strife, poverty, and desire — a distillment of human nature. These poems encompass urban and country life, life and death, and the food that nourishes. Her reflections remind us that beauty can be found not just in the best and worst of times, but also in the cherished mundane in between.
Born Zhang Guifen (張桂芬), the Red Sorghum Poetry Prize (紅高粱詩歌獎) laureate has said:
“It doesn’t matter which author, they essentially all draw strength from their homeland in their literary creations, it is where their souls are rooted at. We all are documenting the changes of our native home and the hardworking, resilient people that depend on that land.” (*my rough translation)
「其實對於任何一個作家來說，文學的創作都不會脫離生養自己的土地，這是一個作家的根和魂，書寫這片熱土的變化和熱土上的勤勞堅韌的人民。」
In her personal essay accompanying translations of Xiao Xi’s poetry, Yilin Wang gracefully explains the historical, cultural, and sociopolitical context of the phrase “reliant on and inseparable from the land (離不開土地),” a keystone to understanding Xiao Xi’s literature, and invites “readers to consider their own relationships with the land they live on.”
DAI WANGSHU (戴望舒, 1905–1950): Zhejiang poet, editor, and translator known for his prolific body of lyrical adaptations of French, Spanish, and Soviet literature. He is also credited with introducing Ovid’s “Ars Amatoria” to the Sinophone world, having translated the Roman classic on the arts of love based on a French edition, “Ovide: L’Art d’Aimer,” into vernacular Mandarin Chinese prose as “Ai Jing (愛經).” Unfortunately, many of his translations were republished in Taiwan without proper credit during the 1950s.
Dai, who signed his French poems as “Tai Van-chou,” studied literature and French in China and traveled to France to enroll at the Sino-French University in Lyon. As a poet, his output was full of melancholic imagery and musicality, giving rise to his nickname “The Poet of Rain Alley (雨巷詩人).” As a translator, he adapted international literature in a classic Sinophone style replete with traditional elements and rhyme. As an editor, he spotlighted the avant-garde poems of the Generation of ’27 including Federico García Lorca, for Dai visited Spain in 1934 before the start of the Spanish Civil War.
Dai’s editorial productivity was at its peak when he lived in Hong Kong during the Second Sino-Japanese War and worked as editor-in-chief of “The Constellation (星座),” a literary supplement to “Sing Tao Daily (星島日報).” This was where he became friends with Taiwanese poet Wu Yingtao (吳瀛濤), among many other literary folks, but this was also where he was captured, jailed, and tortured for seven weeks when Hong Kong fell to imperial Japan in 1943.
There are interesting parallels between the past plagiarism of Dai’s translations and Yilin Wang’s modern battle with the British Museum, in which Wang’s translations were initially used in the ticketed “China’s Hidden Century” exhibition without credit or compensation last year. It is fitting that the second half of her book title pays tribute to Dai’s poem, “Night Moths (夜蛾).”
THE POET-TRANSLATOR
YILIN WANG (王藝霖, 1992- ): Chinese diaspora writer, editor, and translator of Sinophone poetry who lives on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (known colonially as Vancouver, Canada). In between researching works of women poets from the past and present, she enjoys martial arts novels, Mando-pop, and C-dramas with a good cup of tea.
Experienced also as acquiring editor for literary journals and a sensitivity editor for works on Chinese culture and characters, the multilingual Wang authored original fiction and poetry that have appeared in publications including Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, and Words Without Borders before crossing over to translation. The Foster Poetry Prize-winning poet has cited “The Three-Percent Problem” — the worrying phenomenon of how translated materials make up a mere 3% of the total number of books published in the United States every year — as incentivizing.
She now works to increase the diversity and visibility of translations, as well as to curb unethical practices such as “bridge translation,” in which final translations are created by writers who do not know the source language and rely heavily on their imagined rewritings of literal translations by “native informants” who are often sidelined. Wang has also joined the global #NameTheTranslator movement that calls for the translator to be listed next to the author on book covers. Exhibition curators and book reviewers, too, often neglect to credit translators. Just last year, after a lengthy battle, the British Museum apologized to Wang for using her poetry translations without permission or credit.
“The Lantern and the Night Moths,” her first book of translated Sinophone poetry and supplementary essays, debuted April 2. The poems are presented in English translation alongside the original Mandarin Chinese in simplified script, as Wang obtained her Chinese literary education in Simplified Chinese. The anthology celebrates feminist, queer, and decolonial approaches to translation.
Q&A WITH YILIN WANG
➊ Could you walk us through the conception of this book and its title?
YW: I started translating the poems for this book a few years ago and wanted to create an accessible anthology of creative translations of modern and contemporary Sinophone poetry aimed at Sino diaspora poets and general readers interested in Chinese literature. The book’s title is a reference to the two of the poems translated, “lantern” by Fei Ming and “Night Moths” by Dai Wangshu.
The poem “lantern” is in a way an ars poetica, a representation of the light that sparks inspiration and reflection. Fei Ming wrote that “the lantern light seems to have written a poem; / they feel lonesome since i won’t read them.” These lines really capture the power of ambiguity, silence, and negative space in Sinophone poetry. Even a flicker of light can write poetry. Yet who is there to pay attention and read it? The light of a lantern glowing in the dark attracts moths, which are traditionally viewed as the spirits of ancestors in Chinese culture. A moth cannot get too close to the lantern, however, or they’d be engulfed by the flames and reborn again.
For me, the relationship between the lantern and the night moths highlights the nuanced and relational nature of translation itself, as a dialogue between the translator and the translation. This is a theme that I explore throughout the collection’s poetry and my translator’s notes.
➋ The illustrator for your book cover is a Taiwanese artist based in Spain, how did this transnational collaboration happen?
YW: I wanted to hire an artist to create a watercolor painting for the cover, as I believe it would best capture the reflective, lyrical atmosphere of the Chinese poetry I chose for the collection. After looking at various portfolios online, I ended up approaching Ciaoyin Luo to hire her as an artist. I discussed some of the book’s themes with her, and shared a few poems in Mandarin, including “Night Moths”, then shared my general request that she paint an image of moths flying towards a lantern. She showed me several drafts and I gave feedback, and we went back and forth until the cover art was finalized. She did an incredible job and her work is so beautiful. It’s my dream cover. I’d highly recommend other folks looking for watercolor art to work with Ciaoyin.
Bonus quote! In her own words, Ciaoyin Luo (羅喬殷) on conveying the cover’s balance of serenity and solitude through a mix of steely blue and dainty pink hues:
“In this setting, the lamp is more realistically portrayed, whereas the moths flying between the dream realm and our corporeal world are delicately outlined to highlight their translucency. Even the number of moths and moth shadows do not match, reminding readers that there’s more than what greets the naked eye.” (*my rough translation)
「畫面中的燈較具體寫實，因此我想使蛾成為一個像是穿梭在夢境與現實的元素，所以只需要有簡單的輪廓，帶有一點透明感，而且影子的蛾數量和飛行中的蛾數量不同，暗示我們看到的畫面並不一定完整或真實。」
➌ Your grandparents bestowed their love of the written word. This book is dedicated to them, could you elaborate on these cherished memories?
YW: I grew up with my grandparents, and spent several years of my elementary school years living with them. When I returned to China around the age of eight, unable to speak Mandarin or Sichuanese after several years of living abroad, my grandma re-taught me pinyin and reading, and even a bit of calligraphy. I also have many wonderful memories of my grandpa telling me bedtime stories inspired by classics from Chinese literature, such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin, as well as sharing the poetry of Li Bai and Du Fu; these works instilled in me a love of speculative fiction and poetry that continue to inspire me to this today.
➍ You handpicked five poets — three deceased, two alive — to shine light on the sheer range of contemporary Sinophone poetry. How is it like to be able to communicate directly with two of them?
YW: It’s been an honor to work with the contemporary poets Zhang Qiaohui and Xiao Xi. I found their work after reading through many magazines and websites featuring online contemporary poets, and was able to establish a personal connection through a poet/editor I knew. Since we started collaborating, I have been able to hold wonderful conversations with the poets about their creative practice, literary inspirations, and writing communities within China. We have not yet met in person but I look forward to visiting them someday. Sometimes, when I have questions about their work, I will message them and ask them to share more context around their decisions to use a particular word or a specific image, and this can clarify and enrich my translation. I’m not able to have these kinds of dialogues with the early modern poets I translate, so I truly cherish the opportunity to chat with the poets I work with.
➎ You and one featured poet both researched and visited Tiānyī Gé, China’s oldest surviving private library that once banned the presence of women. What was it like there?
YW: I visited Tiānyī Gé back in 2018 when I spent several months traveling throughout China to do research on Chinese folklore, history, and martial arts fiction for my Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at UBC. It was a very memorable experience to be able to visit China’s oldest surviving library and stand in its grounds, feeling a sense of place and history, learning about how the library’s books were preserved throughout the ages. What’s more, I spent a lot of thinking about the tale of Qian Xiuyun, who longed to visit the library many years ago but never had a chance to do so. I translate poetry in honor of women like Xiuyun, who loved books despite not being able to access them freely and whose story we only know through folktales that have been passed down.
➏ Do you have a favorite poem from this collection? Were there other beloved works that were edited out of “The Lantern and the Night Moths”?
YW: This is such a difficult question, as I chose the poems in the collection out of hundreds of poems I read, and every one of them speaks to me in distinct ways. If I have to choose one that has really stayed with me, the poem “lantern” is a personal favourite because of how many times I have had to read it. In the book, I write about the long journey of figuring how to translate the poem and the many challenges I met while rendering Fei Ming’s work in English. The elusive nature of his work really fascinates me and makes his poetry something that I return to again and again. When it comes to poems I left out, there are many other poems by Qiu Jin, Zhang Qiaohui, and Xiao Xi that I love but did not end up including in the anthology because of thematic fit or the limitations of space. I hope I will get a chance to translate and share them in the future.
➐ You are both a translator and a poet, among other creative and editorial roles. What were some of the translation challenges specific to this book?
YW: Every poet I translate offers different kinds of challenges depending on their formal choices, use of poetic language, and approaches to themes, imagery, and metaphor. Qiu Jin, for instance, abided by the strict formal rules of the classical form, which regulated a poem’s use of tonal patterns, parallel syntax, and the number of monosyllabic characters per line. These elements are impossible to render into English given the differences between the language. There is also a strong focus on concision in Chinese poetry, given subjects, pronouns, and other words can often be omitted. When faced with these constraints, I tried to focus on capturing the emotional experience of reading Qiu Jin’s poetry, considering what her voice would have sounded like if she were writing in English.
➑ Any advice for emerging translators in the literary field? Especially in terms of defending their rights or introducing new poets to the Anglophone world?
YW: I like to encourage emerging translators to think of their roles as curators, and to consider the power, possibility, and responsibility that come with being in that role. We can make deliberate choices in seeking out specific voices to translate and advocating for them in the Anglosphere. I also tell translators that, no matter how invisible we may be in the eyes of the publishing industry and the public, we always deserve to be treated well by the publishing industry, to have our labor paid for properly, credited, and recognized. A good resource I like to share for anyone interested in supporting the work of translators is the 2023 Manifesto on Literary Translation.
➒ You made a bingo sheet invoking the common motifs and tropes employed by classical and modern Sinophone poetry. Could you tell us more about this fun project? (I am team “angsty birds” by the way.)
YW: While my book The Lantern and the Night Moths focuses on modern and contemporary Chinese poetry, the poems are often in conversation with, inspired by, or respond to Classical Chinese poetry traditions. These ancient poems are often laden with stock phrases and imagery that often work like metonymy, so I thought it would be great to introduce them to readers. Having co-created a bingo card to share the tropes of wuxia fiction in the past, I settled on the bingo format quite quickly. I went through many of the Classical Chinese poems I knew and identified some images that I thought to occur most frequently and to be the most fun. My current favourites are “sent from the borderlands,” “advice on how to be a hermit,” and “satirical comments about the emperor.”
Help support the book by:
- Ordering a copy (printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled fibers).
- Requesting your local bookstore or library to stock it.
- Inviting Yilin Wang to take part in literary events in 2024.
Editorial notes:
- Q&A quotes provided in English by Yilin Wang in May 2024.
- Bonus quote in Mandarin provided by Ciaoyin Luo in April 2024.
- This article follows AP Stylebook conventions (book titles are not italicized, but presented with quotation marks).
Photo credits (in order of presentation):
- “Qiu Jin’s footprints in history (秋瑾史跡),” released by Shanghai Classics Publishing House (上海古籍出版社) in 1991 and reproduced in the 26th issue of “Journal of the Chinese Department, National Chung Hsing University (興大中文學報第二十六期)” in 2009
- Photos taken by Min Chao
- Youth Times via kknews, Cixi Wencong via San Min Book Co., and courtesy of Yilin Wang
- “About Fei Ming (關於廢名)” authored by Mei Jie (梅杰/眉睫) in 2009
- iFeng via read01, the Bandao network via kknews, and courtesy of Yilin Wang
- Département des Études chinoises — Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, établissement propriétaire du fonds de l’Institut franco-chinois de Lyon; Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture
