National Poetry Month: 黄梵 Huang Fan

Rabbit

It’s always scared, always ready to run  
I often watch it, trying to see if it was a slave in a past life 
What darkness has it soaked in?  
When it came to this world 
Was every hand that fed it grass its master?  

Apparently, it speaks a language 
By grinding its molars 
What’s the philosophy of softer sounds 
Its teeth make when its happy? 

Once I saw a rabbit leap high into the air  
No one else around 
The vet said that’s its happiest ritual  
Congratulations, it sees you as a rabbit  

My zodiac sign really is the rabbit 
As a child, I ground my teeth in my sleep 
According to the rabbit dictionary 
That’s how you say pain  

When I sleep now, I never grind 
Has poetry drawn my pain into its heart? 

***

Translated by Margaret Ross

Margaret Ross is the author of A Timeshare (Omnidawn, 2015) and Saturday (The Song Cave, 2024). Her poems and translations have appeared in Granta, Harper’s, POETRY, and The Paris Review.

***

Author photograph courtesy of 黄梵 Huang Fan

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Huang Fan is the author of nine acclaimed books of poetry and prose. Among his recent honors are the Boao International Poetry Prize, the Beijing Literary Prize for Poetry, the Jinling Literary Prize for Poetry, and a VSC/Luce Foundation Chinese Poetry & Translation Fellowship. He lives and teaches in Nanjing. This year, Gugin Press will publish Strumming a Rope, an anthology of his poetry in English translation.

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