The Smallest Horse - Xi Du / 西 渡

Xi Du / 西 渡





The Smallest Horse

The smallest horse
I put you in my pocket
The smallest horse
You are the moonlight
Blown out by my bride at our wedding
The smallest horse
I hear your cry in the field
Like a child
Or the bodies of lovers
Sleeping in my pocket
The smallest horse
I quietly count the lost days
That we loved each other in secret
You are like a lamp
Just sleeping in my pocket

(Translated by James Oswald and He Jixian)





最小的马

最小的马
我把你放进我的口袋里
最小的马
是我的妻子在婚礼上
吹灭的月光
最小的马
我听见你旷野里的啼哭
像一个孩子
或者像相爱的肉体
睡在我的口袋里
最小的马
我默默数着消逝
的日子，和你暗中相爱
你像一盏灯
就睡在我的口袋里









Xi Du has been an active poet, and also an active poetic critic since the 1980s in China. He has been working as a professor of Chinese Language and Literature Department of Tsinghua University since 2018. He was born in Zhejiang Province in 1967. He studied Chinese literature in Peking University from 1985 to 1989, and received a Doctorate in literature from Tsinghua University in 2015. He began to write poems during his undergraduate studies. Upon graduation at 1989, he became an editor of books on economics and engineering, and stayed in this job until 2018. In that year, he was employed as a tenured professor by Tsinghua University. He has also been engaged in poetry criticism since the 1990s. With six collections of poems and four monographs on poetic criticism published, he has been awarded a variety of poetry/ criticism awards. Fédérop, a French publishing house, published his selected poems LE CHANT DU VENT OU DU ROSEAU, translated by Isild Darras, in 2007. He has been living in Beijing since 1985.



西渡，诗人、诗歌批评家，清华大学中文系教授。 1967年8月生于浙江省浦江县。1985-1989年就读于北京大学中文系，其间开始写诗。1990年代以后兼事诗歌评论。大学毕业以后长期从事编辑工作。2018年调入清华大学人文学院。著有诗集《雪景中的柏拉图》《草之家》《连心锁》《鸟语林》《天使之箭》《钟表店的记忆》。诗论集
《守望与倾听》《灵魂的未来》《读诗记》。诗歌批评专著《壮烈风景——骆一禾论、骆一禾海子比较论》。部分作品被译成法文，结集为《风和芦苇之歌》（法国Éditions Fédérop,2008）。曾获刘丽安诗歌奖、《十月》文学奖散文奖、东荡子诗歌奖批评奖、扬子江诗学奖、昌耀诗歌奖等。