Statement of Poetics
Here are four poems by Ling Yu 零雨, staged as two sets: each set contains a poem from Skin-Colored Time (2018) and a poem from Daughters (2022). In the pairing of “Writing Brush” and “Daughter L,” both speakers use the color black—of calligraphy and family portraiture—to overcome and stand apart from artistic tradition and family values mired in patriarchy. Tonally both poems are different, and their speakers triumph in different ways. The second set, “Pine-Snow Studio” and “Talking to Prisoners,” underlines Ling Yu’s thoughts about the creative process, its forms of tutelage and communication, the fount of writing and its implements such as brushes and/as beams of light.
Writing Brush
I hold a brush
Make it an animate being
I drip water onto a dainty ink slab
My thoughts swirl
Black descends
Black that is passed down
Like densely packed ancestors
Parading from BCE to the present
The small turns of small seal script
The largesse of large seal script
Bronzeware script sounds chiseled
Large seal script, pre-Han, crinkled
My splayed brush summons immortals in splashed ink
My fine brushwork cuts grooves into Cao’s wet clothes
It holds my hand
Makes me an animate being
Why not some arid strokes of dawn
Hazy stupor of rain
Clear perception of noon
I steal in, steal out. At last
In time’s cavalry
I got my seal of recognition
——amid the deepest black
毛筆
我握住一枝毛筆
想賦予它靈魂
我將水注入小小硯池
我的意念旋轉
黑色降臨
祖傳的黑色
像黑壓壓的眾多祖父
從西元前列隊而來
小篆小轉
大篆大轉
金文有金屬聲
籀文有皺紋
我破筆刷出潑墨仙人
我工筆細描曹衣出水
它握住我的手
想賦予我靈魂
來一點黎明的飛白
雨天的迷茫
中午的明心見性
我溜進溜出。最後
在時光的隊伍中
我被辨認出來
––––在最深沉的黑裡
Daughter L
Why did they treat you like this
Because you’re a daughter
You still recall the harassment into the night the
Assault in childhood you thought was a dream was a
Nightmare lacking experience you recall those shadows
You were both scrawling a multi-colored happy family but that
Black you finally used to outline the edges of the whole portrait
Made it complete and so then black became your color they’d
Say that’s style
Because you’re a daughter you formed your style from the twentieth century
Until the twenty-first daughters started to form their style because you
Produced the black the black came out black smelted from the deepest
(or even deeper) layers of the sea
As style
女兒L
他們為什麼這樣對你
因為你是女兒
你還記得那些半夜的騷擾那些
幼時的侵犯你以為這只是夢只是一個不
解事的噩夢你記得這些黑影
你們一起在塗鴉塗著色彩斑斕的幸福家庭但那
黑色你最後才拿出來勾勒好邊邊角角整張
圖才算完整了後來黑色就變成了你的顏色他們
說那是風格
因為你是女兒你就形成了風格從二十世紀
到二十一世紀女兒就開始形成了風格因為你
把黑色拿出來了黑色從海的最深處（──再深一點）
底層冶煉出來的黑色
風格
Pine-Snow Studio
—for Huang Gongwang
Here we plant a few
Pine trees
When it snows
We build a studio
We’ve walked over here
I am the youngest of all
A strapping force
Beams at us
Secretly contained in our brushes
When put to work, our brushes
Let slip a sliver of light
(As for what lasts— )
Brushwork, center-tip or side-cut, dry or wet shading
—the world comes into being
Our world—
In the thicket
In the undulating ridges
In the seabound riverbanks
In the deep and quiet bamboo groves
(Extracting, then embedding oneself— )
That lone traveler’s cane is me
That towering tree trunk is me
That crevice in the rock is mine
To hide in—
Just like that I dubiously
Find a view to paint, and live
Inside
Just like that I learn:
I am and will always be
Under Pine-Snow Studio’s tutelage
松雪齋
──致黃公望
這裡我們種下
幾棵松
雪下來的時候
我們建造一個書齋
我們向這裡走來
我是其中最小的
一種偉岸的東西
在發光
被我們的筆祕密包裹著
只要我們一提筆
就洩露出點點光芒
(關於永恆的──)
中峰、側峰，焦墨、濕染
──世界漸漸形成
我們的世界──
在密林中
在層層的峰巒
在靠海的江邊
在幽深的竹篠裡
(把自己抽出，又置入──)
那獨行者的手杖是我
那崔嵬的樹幹是我
那岩石的縫隙，是我的
躲藏──
如此我虛虛實實
取景，描畫，且生活
在其中
如此我學到了一點：
我是且永是
松雪齋中小學生
Talking to Prisoners
I’ve mastered a technique
To talk to prisoners
I pierce through walls
To find the one person
Trapped in bed
I will use a beam of light
To type words on his heart
Black background white font
A5
PMingLiU 12pt font
The second Sunday in May
The third Sunday in June
Or other ritual-bearing holidays
I will put my technique to the test
Develop a child’s
Endless potential
Because of this I become a child
And get my reward
“You create your own reality”
Painstakingly I write this
Page by page as an exercise
My master once put in such an effort
And shot his beam at me
Through the walls—
You saw the crack
A case in point
和囚犯說話
我學到一項技術
將和囚犯說話
我穿透牆壁
看到那個人
困在床上
我將利用一束光
在他的心上打字
黑底白字
32開大小
新細明12號字體
五月的第二個禮拜天
八月八日
或其他有儀式的節日
我將進行這項技術實驗
開發孩童
無限潛能
我將因此而變成孩童
而獲得獎勵
「你創造你自己的實相」
我這樣努力寫著
一頁一頁練習
我的老師曾經這樣努力
把光打給我
穿透牆壁──
那裂縫你看到了
就是這樣