LOVE FANTASY – Chinese contemporary poetry: Wang Jiming

Shi Zhi, was a modest writer during his adolescence, but the terrors of the Cultural Revolution transformed his poetry into something truly powerful. Those who had experienced the Cultural Revolution, were filled with uncertainty about the future of China. Poetry helped to feed them, becoming a source of hope. Two schools, shaped the landscape of Chinese contemporary poetry: poets coming from northern China and the New Generation (being mostly southerners). Modern poetry began with underground writers (such as Shi Zhi). He was read by thousands of younger-generation Chinese, at the beginning of the Culture Revolution. Beilingwang, is the pen name of Wang Jiming. In 1985, he graduated from the Dezhou Teachers’ College. A middle school Chinese language teacher for more than a decade, he now works in an Education Bureau in Pingyuan County. His poems have appeared in several literary journals across China. By Wang Zhimin, we like to offer you the reading of the first part of a poem.

ON LOVE FANTASY OF THE LOWEST KIND – It happened only once, before I was 50 and can never be repeated again, when I indulged in an unspeakable pleasure for two years, carnal pleasure, pure sensual pleasure, not only in luxury hotels, sometimes in cheap hourly rooms or in even darker corners, too. It happened not only at night, even more often on springtime mornings. Whenever my body felt tormented by desires, I would squander away what treasures people were eager to have just to indulge myself for one moment, making sure the shades of the curtains and the bed sheets, the brightness of the lamps and the ambiance were just right. I indulged in living and couldn’t care less about what life was for. Of course, what I did violated the codes of conduct of my countrymen and would be condemned if known. Even though it began with love, our love had no future.

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