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This paper is about the idea of Macao as a subject for poetry and the state of Macao poetry today in various languages. Particular emphasis is given to the prospects for community among Macao poets and a number of current poetry projects in which the author is engaged. These include collaborations focused on translation of, and response to, both classical and living Chinese poets (especially Macao writers). The new on-line journal Poetry Macao is introduced along with discussion of work-in-progress towards the production of a major new English language anthology of contemporary Macao poetry, planned for publication in late 2008 by the Association of Stories in Macao (ASM).
THIS paper is about the present state of poetry in Macao. It is also about poetry writing methods and the production of a “poetry of response” in Macao; about translation and movement of poems and poetic ideas across cultures; about communities of poets, about their contribution to society; and about the future of poetry in Macao. This paper also aims—through selective quotation—to allow the new Macao poetry to speak for itself.
Before going further, it will be apt to acknowledge a tension between an observer’s view and a participant’s view of the object under consideration—the object in question being contemporary Macao poetry. The author of this paper feels obliged to acknowledge the several hats he wears as writer and teacher, editor and translator, as publisher and disseminator of Macao poetry. How objective can he be about the subject? That question is well answered with a question. How objective does one need to be—could one be—about poetry, its making, its reading, its dissemination? Poetry is an art and it needs to be produced and discussed according to aesthetic standards—that is, according to standards which apply to —and which aid in—creative processes.
This necessary reflexive account out of the way, the author announces the main event this paper foreshadows—this being the publication of what will be the first major English language anthology of Macao poetry. It will probably be called something like Macao Poetry Today. This paper then represents something of a prolegomenon for an envisaged companion volume About the Macao Poetry—in fact that might well be the title.
Why are these two volumes necessary? An English language anthology of contemporary Macao poetry is essential because there is a lot of excellent poetry being written in Macao today and this needs to be made available to a world audience. The world needs this new poetry and Macao needs to have its voice heard. Macao is in the world spotlight today but not necessarily for the best of reasons. The need for Macao to represent itself as a place of serious and accomplished cultural production has never been more acute. The second volume—about the poetry—is necessary because the outside reader will require explanation for much of what is in the anthology and also because these are works demanding interpretation, contextualisation and comparison. The educated English-language reader needs to have this poetry “placed”.
Some definitions will be appropriate at this point. For these purposes (i.e. for the purposes of this paper and those of the anthology)—what is meant by “Macao poetry”? Essentially—Macao poetry means poetry written by residents of Macao or poetry written about Macao by others. “About Macao” actually covers quite a range because “Macao” can be something of a state of mind. The name is suggestive of many things—for instance, of the long-term pre-Hong Kong portal between China and the West, of the Portuguese Empire in the East, of a game of chance. It is also “City of the Name of God”—or of gods. Place of good fortune. A lazy tropical place. A river town with seaside aspirations. A place of distrust, dissimulation. Miscegenation. A place of makeshift solutions. Of course the name is suggestive of inter-cultural crossing and mis / understanding in general. All of that is “Macao”.
So far the anthology under construction contains thirty six poets, writing in Chinese, Portuguese and English (so in most cases translated). The aim is to make this an inclusive anthology and my guess is that we will probably end up with between fifty and sixty poets in the publication. It is quite remarkable that there are so many good poets in a city of this size and I think that truly we can call Macao a city of poets. Certainly we know it is a city of culture as much as of casinos.
At this point, one should note two parallel anthology developments, in the Macao Foundation’s recently released two volume collection (edited by Lei Kun Teng—澳門現代詩選 Aomen xiandai shixuan (A Selection of Macao Contemporary Poetry); and a Portuguese language volume currently under preparation, but about which only sketchy details are available so far. Neither of these collections includes translated work. So bringing all of the known and some of the unknown Macao poets to an English-language readership is an important development. It represents the work of many people, most of whom are members of the Association of Stories in Macao (ASM) —recently awarded the most active publishing association award in the First Excellent Macao Books Award (第一屆優秀澳門圖書評選) which is organised by Associação de Publicações de Macau (澳門出版協會 Aomen chuban xiehui).
Perhaps will it be best to commence with the poetry of some of the ASM members who are most closely involved in the Macao Poetry Anthology project. These young women (in their twenties)—writing in Chinese and in English—and heavily involved in the translation of other poets—and in both directions—are (in this author’s view) very much the future of Macao poetry:
Here are three poems by Agnes Vong(1) to begin with, taken from her forthcoming volume, Glitter on the Sketch:
The suggestion of death here is through the subtle juxtapositions of light and darkness, colour and black and white. The questions raised are fundamental ones—about the meaning or purpose of life, about the nature of happiness. They are questions that could be asked anywhere, in any culture, and yet they seem to have particular pertinence for Macao—as a place of—among many other things—great cultural continuities. Here is another Vong poem—continuing the interest in the photographic moment and its meaning—that brings the Macao landscape more clearly into focus.
The big questions continue in “coins falling” but now they are asked in a very particular voice, and revealing a particular point of view, one the reader has to work a little to find.
A fascination with beggars is in fact widespread among Macao poets of recent time, for instance in this collaborative poem by Hilda Tam(2) and Sidney Ung(3) .
Here is an older example in part of a poem (in draft translation) from one of the most important Portuguese voices in Macao, that of Carlos Marreiros. (4) From “An Old Umbrella”:
- translated by Lili Han and Christopher Kelen
I think the beggar is a figure of fascination for Macao poets today because he / she embodies certain contradictions inherent in Macao’s new found gambling oriented wealth. In fact the beggar can be seen as the negative figure of luck, the character cast on the street through bad luck—the very type of the aphorism “there but for the grace of God, go I.” And of course the beggar is suggestive of alms and so of religious obligation. In Macao the question will always be—which religion (?)—and so I think we can ask—which obligations (?). The beggar is also a figure of distrust—(Is s / he genuine? Is s / he part of an organised scam?). So the beggar is victim of the economy but also somehow an image of corruption or at least of doubt, of dubious morals. The point is that the beggar is type / figure / character who—forgive me—begs questions about the identity of Macao and its inhabitants more generally.
So the beggar is a good starting point around which to gather most of the key themes that concern Macao poetry as it is being written in various languages today. Of these perhaps identity is the centering issue. The fundamental questions of identity—who are we (?), who should we be (?)—these are the lens through which Macao is seen by poets and artists (as well as perhaps by many others) today. What do we witness through that lens? These are the key thematics:
- a place changing at an extraordinary pace (a pace of change none of us has ever
experienced before);
- new found wealth—the rich / poor divide;
- the idea of luck;
- Macao as the portal place—between empires, civilisations, at the end of empire;
- postcolonial space, recolonised space;
- Macao as the anywhere place, the smallest place, the dot on the map;
The figure of the beggar may embody questions as to whose place it is, as to who is deserving and who is not, questions as to who is the real thief—of time, of money, of identity.
The poet—perhaps without quite saying so—often sees him / herself as something of a beggar—taking truth as it is given—or one might say witnessed—just in the everyday—as it passes on the street—in snatches of speech, in the uncanny image… the poet works with what is freely given of the world—these are the raw materials of poetry (as they may be for other art forms). And if this paper has an argument—which perhaps it neither needs nor would benefit by—then perhaps it is that the alternative to the begging mode of composition in poetry would be the kind of community we find in conversation and in response.
The need for community in poetry in Macao is manifest. Chinese, Portuguese, and English language poetries have to date been quite separate and there has been further “ghettoisation” in each of these linguistic / poetic communities. There have been limited opportunities for meetings of mind across cultural / language / aesthetic gulfs. There has never been any regular forum for tri-lingual (or multi-lingual) poetry exchange in Macao, but the time for such forum is approaching. It is to be hoped that the anthology envisaged and the work of ASM (and of other organisations) can help to bridge some of the cultural / linguistic divides currently impeding communication in the literary (as in other) arts in Macao. Perhaps it is worth mentioning at this point too that most of the poems included in this paper were never read aloud in English before the Ricci Institute presentation (on which this paper is based) was given in February 2008.
To turn now to identity as the key problematic, in Macao poetry today, the question of identity can be viewed from historical, political, aesthetic and oneiric angles.
Part of the identity oriented work witnessed in Macao poetry today is the poet’s need to speak, to connect with tradition, but perhaps more importantly, to connect things of apparently larger—even of universal / eternal—significance with things of the here-and-now. Let’s start with some lines from Che Sio Peng’s(5)
“I have something to say”.
- translated by Athena Kong and Christopher Kelen
Dawn, dusk, worship, the survival of words, the question of what constitutes a poem as opposed to a song. These are all part of this persona’s highly reflexive “something to say”. The idea of a need to say something—the need to make a difference through the process of saying—seems to contrast somehow with idea of the old story being spread about in the end. Or is there a difference here? Are we saying something new? Or have we joined the chorus of crows there already? Have we / Can we make any difference? Surely answering this might be a key to the bigger question as to who we are or who we think we are.
In Fong Keng Seng’s(6) “About Dreams”, wild discordant imagery delivers a kaleidoscopic past and a present of oneiric cause and effect—as certain as it is unreliable. The poem begins as follows:
– translated by Athena Kong and Christopher Kelen
The habit of reversing logical expectations, as in Fong Keng Seng’s lines
is one well established in many poetries; in this case it points, I think, to questions bearing on what might be thought Platonist assumptions about the nature of identity, questions—whether intended as such or not—pertinent to the postcolonial condition of the Macao citizen / subject. Later in the poem:
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1. Agnes Vong recently completed an M.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Macau. Her first volume of poems Glitter on the Sketch is forthcoming from ASM. Vong is co-editor (with the author) of the anthology of Macao poetry foreshadowed in this article.
2. Hilda Tam is a full-time researcher in the English Department at the University of Macau, where she completed her M.A. with a thesis on the fiction of Angela Carter. Tam’s first novel Ah Xun’s 5 Destinies was published by ASM in 2006.
3. Sidney Ung is a Creative Writing graduate of the University of Macau and now works in the Macao hotel industry.
4. Carlos Marreiros—esteemed architect, poet and painter—has been a well known Macao identity for many years.
5. Che Sio Peng is a secondary teacher at Escola Luso-Chinesa Tecnico-Profissional, and she is one of the poets listed in Macao New Generations Poetry-notes, 1991.
6. Fong Keng Seng is the president of “Associacão de Arte Poetica Chinesa de Macau”. She is a full-time Chinese Portuguese translator at the Macao Legislative Assembly.
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Christopher (Kit) Kelen is an Associate Professor at the University of Macau in South China, where he has taught Literature and Creative Writing for the last seven years. The most recent of his eight volumes of poetry Dredging the Delta was published by Cinnamon Press in the U.K. in 2007. Professor Kelen is the editor of the on-line journal Poetry Macao and also poetry editor for the glossy culture monthly magazine Macao Closer. |
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| Issue 6.3 |
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Remembering—
A Shared Duty
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