Air Force One - Jiang Tao / 姜 涛

Jiang Tao / 姜 涛






Air Force One

The airplane cuts through thick clouds, bringing forth

the archipelago’s anxiety

Crawling on the reef, those soldiers

on military maneuvers just learned to say ‘hello’

Now they have to suddenly stand up

in the Okinawan town hall ablaze with lights

while you, President in a black body,

great lover of one black body,

tonight, where are you going to stay?

In bed next door, which Secretary of State,

in white body, is it

that illuminates Asian affairs?

Out of the Pacific undercurrent, who can

swim slowly toward here, appearing

in a round cap with a single star,

and knocking on you, say,

‘Buddy, it’s still early,

let’s go out for a walk.’


(Translated by Arthur Sze and Jiang Tao)







空军一号

飞机穿越云层，带来列岛的焦虑

那些匍匐在海礁上

演习的官兵，才习惯了说 hello

又要唐突地竖起自己

在灯火通明的冲绳县厅

可是你，“黑身体”的大统领

“黑身体”的大情人

今夜，又下榻在哪里？

隔壁，又睡了哪一位白身体的

照耀了亚洲事物的国务卿？

从太平洋暗流中，谁又能

慢慢游过来，露出

圆圆的带星星的军帽

敲敲你的腰，说：

“老兄！时候尚早

我们出去走走。”

***




Jiang Tao was born in 1970. He currently teaches in the Department of Chinese at Peking University. In 1990, he began writing poetry, and devoted himself to poetry criticism and to researching the history of poetry in the Twentieth Century. His publication include, among others, the poetry collections, Book of Birds, The Good News, The Wonderful World We Living Together, the critical volume, Bakunin’s Hands, and the scholarly works, The Tower in Apartment, Anthologies and the Emergence of Modern Chinese Poetry.


姜涛，1970 年生，1989 年考入清华大学，攻读生物医学工程专业，1999 年考入北京大学中文系，攻读中国现代文学专业博士，毕业后，留校任教至今。出版有诗集《我们共同的美好生活》、《好消息》、《鸟经》，学术及批评专著《新诗集与中国新诗的发生》、《巴枯宁的手》、《公寓里的塔：1920 年代的文学与青年》等。