Zang Di (臧棣), born in Beijing in April 1964, was admitted to Chinese Department of Peking University in September 1983 and received a Ph D in Literature from Peking University in July 1997, where he has been teaching since 1996 and is currently a professor in Chinese Department and editor of the journal New Poetry Criticism. He briefly worked as a journalist for China News Agency from 1990 to 1993. He has ever won numerous poetic prizes and awards including Pearl River International Poetry Festival Award in 2007, Perfect Chinese Literature Award from Changjiang River Literature & Art in 2008, the Poet of the Year 2008 Award from Chinese Literature Media Awards, etc. His many honors include one of Contemporary China’s Top Ten Prominent Young Poets (2005), 1979-2005 China’s Top Ten Avant-Courier Poets (2006), China’s Top Ten Rising Poetry Critics (2007), Contemporary China’s Top Ten Rising Poets (2007), Chinese Poetry Biennial Top Ten Poets (2008), etc. He is the author of several collections of poetry, which are Memory of Yan Yuan (1998), The Rustle of Leaves in the Wind (2000), Fresh Thorns (2002), The Universe is Flat (2008), and Empty-City Strategy (2009)。
臧棣1964年4月生在北京。1997年7月获北京大学文学博士学位。北京大学中国诗歌研究院研究员。现任教于北京大学中文系。代表性诗集有《燕园纪事》（1998），）,《宇宙是扁的》（2008）、《小挽歌丛书》（2012），《骑手和豆浆》（2015），《最简单的人类动作入门》（2017），《情感教育入门》（2019），《沸腾协会》（2019），《尖锐的信任丛书》（2019）等。曾获《南方文坛》杂志“2005年度批评家奖”，“中国当代十大杰出青年诗人”（2005），“1979-2005中国十大先锋诗人”（2006），“中国十大新锐诗歌批评家”（2007）。《星星》2015年度诗歌奖。扬子江诗学奖（2017）。2016年5月应邀参加德国不来梅诗歌节。2017年10月应邀参加美国普林斯顿诗歌节。
Poems 诗歌
Gateway to a Black Cat by the River
On it, there’s a pitch-black hue second only to
Christmas night of 1962 which Marilyn Monroe
didn’t live to see. On it, an array of alabaster,
though much smaller in size, second only to how
you’ve felt the snow on the peak of Muztagh Ata
make the sunlight start to prickle. It’s not just some
mere embellishment that can easily be dismissed.
The cat is real but finds it difficult to return to reality.
Like us, it resides in the outskirts of the capital
but has never been to Fragrant Hills; it has
a pungent odor which you’ll never have a chance to smell.
Between yesterday and today, the only difference is
the cat is still crouching in the dry, flaxen grass,
leaving itself exposed to an evil plan.
It experiences the passage of time as
a homing-in-on its soon-to-be prey again and again,
its patience reduced to part of winter’s game.
When the cat looks back to judge your motives,
it has the eyes of a wizard wearing a black mask.
It only appears nervous
so as not to embarrass you.
It knows you’ve seen its secret:
in its stomach lies
a magpie with undigested wings.
It knows you haven’t told anybody else yet, as though
this sort of thing can only be hinted at in poetry.
Jan 27, 2018
Translated by Kassy Lee & Zuo Fei, published by Spittoon Literary Magazine, Issue 5.
河边的黑猫入门
它身上的一团漆黑，仅次于，
玛丽莲·梦露没能活到
1962 年的圣诞夜；它身上的花白，
面积要小很多，仅次于你见过
慕士塔格山脊上的积雪
令阳光刺痒，绝不是几个
点缀就能轻易打发的，
它真实存在，却很难回到现实。
同属于首都郊区，但它
没去过香山；所以它身上
浓重的味道，你不会有机会闻到。
昨天和今天的区别就是
它依然蹲伏在河边，枯黄的草色
将它暴露在一个邪恶的计划中；
时间的流逝对它来说更像是
对潜在的猎物的一次次聚焦。
它的耐心已沦为冬天的游戏的一部分。
回过头来判断你的动机时，
它的眼神如戴着黑面具的巫师，
它流露出的紧张更像是
为了避免你会陷入某种尴尬；
它已猜到你知道它的一个秘密：
它的肚子里还残留着
尚未消化干净的喜鹊的羽毛；
它知道你还没有告诉别人，
就好像这样的事只能用诗来暗示。
2018 年 1 月 27 日
Gateway to that Horse
Rereading Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Under its thick and sweaty hide, a sharp pain
explodes in another Red Sea.
If only it were simply a brute, under the whip
it could grow numb to the ruthless beating.
Well, between you and me, what should
we call the little precious horror
that makes the boiling blood clot?
When the dark clouds of Turin
shroud the scene with a black bewilderment,
even if death were lazy, the eternal recurrence
would take the me-in-you to the edge of the abyss,
as if there were choices other than the narrow gate.
There, so determined it becomes dull and heavy,
the air has hot fragments in its mouth, as if by accident
it reveals time has had tiger teeth all along.
There, arms which tightly clasp the horse’s head held high
reach out in a gesture that shows
you have more consciousness than God.
And yet, taken as resistance, your embrace is
a storyboard of metamorphoses more naïve
than we are. Your sobs are a necklace singing,
they turn the ornaments of an unbridled madness
into a wreath of fresh flowers haloing your obscure legacy.
Sept 29, 2018
Translated by Kassy Lee & Zuo Fei, published by Spittoon Literary Magazine, Issue 5
那匹马入门
——重读尼采《扎拉图斯特拉如是说》
隔着汗津津的厚皮，
尖锐的疼痛在另一个红海里爆炸；
如果它仅仅是畜生，是挥舞的
皮鞭下的只能由冷酷来麻痹的对象，
那么，在你我之间
让沸腾的血液猛然凝固起来的
那一小坨可贵的惊愕
又会是什么呢？当都灵的乌云
带着黑色的困惑将现场围拢，
哪怕死神偷懒，那永恒的轮回
也会把你中有我带到深渊的边缘，
就好像那里埋伏着比窄门更多的抉择。
那里，坚决到沉闷的空气
叼着热烫的碎片，就好像无意之间，
空气暴露了时间是长过虎牙的。
那里，高昂的头颅被紧紧搂住，
伸出的手臂仿佛来自比神的觉悟
还要清醒的一个生命的动作；
而作为一种阻挡，你的拥抱
是比我们更天真的变形记的
分镜头，你的哭泣是歌唱的项链，
将伟大的疯狂佩戴成
围绕着无名遗产的一圈鲜花。
2018 年 9 月 29 日
US China Poetry Dialogue
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