Tuesday Poem - 'Round' by Ouyang Yu

Round

One student stood up and said,

'the subtle factor that makes live endurable' is not right

as the word 'endurable' is not a correct

translation of the Chinese characters yuanhua

'What do you think?' the teacher asked

Cai, a broad-faced man-boy. 'What words

Would you use: “smooth”, perhaps?'

Chen, the man-boy, with a constant hat, offered.

'Because it's more like “skillful” I'd say'

an instant knitting of her brows appeared on the fresh-faced

girl sitting in the middle that did not escape the teacher

who said 'What about you?'

She said, 'I'd use sophisticatedly', when the hat boy said,

'No, it's more than just that.' The girl went silent

the teacher, instead of giving his translation, asked if any knew what

'long soup' and 'short soup' meant

seeing no one did he went online in search

of the pictures but they were not right at baidu.com

and were not available on Google or Yahoo

so he revealed that long soup stood for noodles

and short for huntun or what is known as 'swallowing clouds'

'Now,' he said to the class. 'You tell me what tangyuan

is in English.' One girl said, 'dumplings', and before the teacher finished

saying 'no' the hat-boy said, gropingly, 'round soup'

he won an 'Excellent' from the teacher

who claimed that that was exactly what he had coined

and said that if there was fangtang, it would have to be

square soup before he turned to the yuanhua again

saying how much delighted he would be if there was

an equivalent in English, a language still too primitive

for the yuanhuaness of the Chinese

a two-character combination that literally meant

round-slippery, not eel-slippery

not oil-slippery

not even unctuous-slippery

but round-slippery or round and slippery

on his way home, the teacher was defeated again

when he thought of the impossibility of match

making the two languages in this single expression

that describes a person's unctuousness, like oil or an eel

or that denotes life's smoothness

in a round manner

as round

as a ball

Ouyang Yu

This salty, transgressive book is such a delight. It is so tasty. With a big dollop of larrikin spirit on the side. I am not a bit surprised it is shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize For Poetry this year, alongside some other very toothsome books.

http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/2016-kenneth-slessor-prize-poetry

I do prefer to type up the poems for my blog, even if they are very long, because I get the feel of how they are put together. It is like unpicking a dress to find the ins and outs of it. Any secret gussets? How are the sleeves set in? Is the lining skimped? Etc etc. And I didn't notice, until I was typing Round, how very eccentric the punctuation and capitalisation are. And then I got the rhyme and reason for it. It signals the arbitrary and laborious effort of match making two languages. Amongst other things.

http://fiveislandspress.com/catalogue/fainting-with-freedom