‘I often recall’

The following poem is reprinted from Best Literary Translations 2026, an anthology of poetry and prose from across the globe. Guest edited by US Poet Laureate Arthur Sze, the collection features thirty-two works of poetry, fiction, and literary nonfiction translated into English from twenty-one languages, including works by Kim Hyesoon, Yuki Tanaka, and Chen Yuhong.

***

[I often recall]

I often recall
that evening
by the brook,

when I was drunk
and didn’t know
the way home.

I got bored and
returned to my boat;
it was already dark.

Unwittingly I drifted
and found myself deep
among the lotus flowers.

So, I
rowed, and
rowed,

and startled
a flock of herons
into flight.

Translator’s Note

This poem is a 词 (ci), which is a form of lyric poetry that reached its literary and artistic peak during the Song dynasty. It is, simply put, rewritten song lyrics. Each 词 follows the prosody of a specific song. However, the original melodies have been lost to time. We can recognize the patterns and identify the 词s that follow the same song, but we no longer know how they are sung. Owing to the differences between English and Chinese, as well as the poem’s lost melody, I translated the poem from the modern reader’s perspective—with a focus on the poem’s stuporous imagery and the way it sounds when recited. This poem also has a 诗眼, the eye of the poem. It is a poetic concept coined by the Song dynasty literary titan Su Shi, and it refers to a line or phrase that imbues a poem with a sense of life, a semblance of a soul. The 诗眼 is similar to Roland Barthes’s idea of punctum in photography. This poem’s “eye” lies in the last stanza—that sudden burst of movement, of flight, which contrasts with the dreamy mood of the stanzas that came before. But does that burst of movement jolt the poet awake, or does it lead her into a deeper dream? The poet’s answer, it seems, is confidently ambiguous. In translating this poem, I strived to translate the presence of this “eye” fully through the careful placing of the verb “startled” and bunching the fricatives in “flock” and “flight” close together.

♦

From Best Literary Translations 2026, edited by Noh Anothai, Wendy Call, Öykü Tekten, Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, and Arthur Sze. Reprinted by permission of the translator and the publisher.

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