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September 09, 2008

"Half-Poems" [by Yu Xiang]

Half-Poems

I like writing half poems
that I know I will never finish.
A finished poem
can't ease a death or
quicken a life
and I wonder why
I still try
to write poems
and finish them.
A finished poem
belongs to anyone who reads it,
people you know or don't know,
people who love you,
people you dislike.

My half-poems belong to myself alone.

-- Yu Xiang (born 1970)

translated from the Chinese by Fan Jinghua and David Lehman

Posted by on September 09, 2008 at 06:25 AM in Poems |

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ICYMI

Best American Poetry Web ad3
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"Lively and affectionate" Publishers Weekly

Radio

I left it
on when I
left the house
for the pleasure
of coming back
ten hours later
to the greatness
of Teddy Wilson
"After You've Gone"
on the piano
in the corner
of the bedroom
as I enter
in the dark


from New and Selected Poems by David Lehman

ThisWayOut
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