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  • Six Poems
  • Khoo Seok Wan (bio)
    Translated by Shelly Bryant (bio) and Wang Xinlei (bio)

watching a film of the malay archipelago

white ocean surf gathers, driftinghot waves, long and broad, continually risein the humble homes by a dense wood    the local people residelofty peaks tower so high they disappear    leaving the ocean, by contrast, leveled

who frequents the home    of the disbursing officer here?through the door’s openings and closings    the governor’s face is glimpsedas thousands of light boats flit awaypromising to return in time    to watch the turn to the greens of spring

Translation by Shelly Bryant and Wang Xinlei

the sapphire sea

the sapphire sea touching the isle’s edgeechoes the tune of an oarbeat upon the placid surfaceaccompanying the fisherman’s song

he boasts to his companionsof the fish meeting in his nettheir scales’ bright hues mirroringthe young couple’s gambol on the shore [End Page 165]

xing zhou

of the many islands strung together    the most prominent is Xing Zhousituated in a sea so vast    that rocky mountains can hardly be seentoday’s travelers to the region    will find their sojourn easier nowsteady in its role as a favorable locale    a well-equipped, strident junction

xing zhou 2

a tiny island    at rest in the waters    that split the mountain rangeat sunset    the sails of junks    put away to rest for the nightin equatorial lands    the furious currents flow past from the west    separating north from souththere is no path    leading from here    through the vast seasthis place    being but a mirage    existing only in a phantom worldwhere hunters’ whips    drive their steeds    across iron bridgesand through the clouds    a hawklike people fly true        even in troubled times [End Page 166]

a map of singapore

holding a map of the island in handa painted landscape lies before mebewitched, the flying rodent in the imagetakes on the form of a lion*

a natural moat to defend        against Western forcespreserving its original formnow a wilderness consumes    the barracks we’ve madeafter a century of developmentcan the page still contain        the whole of this land?

listening to local talk

speaking a language beyond my graspin this noise do they pass their quiet livesdrinking water in place of tea

roots of taro flourish under the soilabove, a bounty of coconutsblows freely in the breezes

in the fertile dewfeather palms rustlewhere lettuce and sesame open to the wind

the places I once knewso long ago, exchanged nowfor these sandy shores

Translations by Shelly Bryant
Khoo Seok Wan

Khoo Seok Wan (1874–1941) was a literary scholar, poet, education reformist, political activist in revolutionary China, and community leader in Singapore. He produced over a thousand poems, as well as articles about Chinese literature and politics. The poems in this issue of Mänoa are from “Khoo Seok Wan: Poet and Reformist,” an exhibition organized by the Singapore National Library Board.

Shelly Bryant

Shelly Bryant is a teacher, writer, researcher, and translator. She is the author of four volumes of poetry and two travel guides; the translator of Sheng Keyi’s novel Northern Girls and Chew Kok Chang’s short-story collection Other Cities, Other Lives; and the editor of a collection of speculative poetry, A Demon in My View.

Wang Xinlei

Wang Xinlei is a writer and photographer for That’s Shanghai, a major Shanghai-based lifestyle magazine produced for expatriates; a photo contributor to CNN’s Asian site; and a freelancer for Wall Street Journal and The American Lawyer.

Footnotes

* The shape of the land is like a bat, but rumors, like magic, turn it into a lion. [End Page 167]

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