Professor C
Ya Hsien
Translated from the Chinese by Helena Haitian Jiang
In June his white stiff collar continues propping up his classics
Each morning, he ties his tie in the manner before the great war
And then the walking stick, the snuff box, and then he goes out
Crossing the campus the desire to be a statue still buds in him
as in early years
While it’s no use having spinach
It has long been verified that there is nothing beyond the clouds
When all the darkness stoops to ransack a light
He says he has an enormous face
late at night, made up of stars
C教授
到六月他的白色硬領仍將繼續支撐他底古典
每個早晨，以大戰前的姿態打着領結
然後是手杖、鼻煙壺，然後外出
穿過校園時依舊萌起早歲那種
成為一尊塑像的欲望
而吃菠菜是無用的
雲的那邊早經證實甚麼也沒有
當全部黑暗俯下身來搜查一盞燈
他説他有一個巨大的臉
在晚夜，以繁星組成
August 20th, 1960
Ya Hsien (1932—11 October 2024), real name Wang Ching-lin, was a Taiwanese poet and scholar. His first poem, entitled “A Small Flower” (我是一勺靜美的小花朵), was published in 1954. Also in 1954 alongside fellow poets Chang Mo and Luo Fu he founded the Epoch Poetry Society which subsequently became highly influential.
Helena Haitian Jiang is a postgraduate majoring in English Language and Literature at Shanghai International Studies University, China. Her fiction, poems, essays, translations, and paintings have appeared or are forthcoming in Hobart, Gone Lawn, Los Angeles Review, Ilanot Review, Heavy Feather Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Arkana, and elsewhere.
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