Preface ( A Selection From Top 500 Poems In English)
In the beginning of August, 2015, I received a copy of the Vietnam At War by the former Chinese Vietnamese writer, Mr. Pan Zhou, and later it turned out to be the connection for me to know about Mr. Xie Zhenyu, a senior Chinese writer and poet in Vietnam. One day last summer, while I searched in the Internet, looking for historical information about my parents'
hometown, also my birth place----Vietnam, I surprisingly found the book, War At Vietnam by Mr. Pan, which later on impressed me a lot. So before I received his book I could not wait to read his other works published inWorldjournal.com and his blog where I read his stories such as Rambutan and A Mixed Race Child and some prose and poems.
Mr. Pan then introduced me to "Huang Yingquan Writing Workshop" on Facebook. This is a great writing workshop with members from all over the world, and most of them are Chinese originally from Vietnam, who are good at writing prose, novels, poetry and calligraphy and so on. One of the members I met there is Mr. Xie Zhenyu, who now is living in Vietnam. Talking with Mr. Xie is a pleasant thing to do. Mr. Xie is an accomplished writer, very knowledgeable, and has a good sense of humor. I am impressed by his witty and humorous writings, his great personality, personal charisma and accomplishment in translation.
I started to write and translate in 2013. I focused on poetry from ancient times and works by contemporary poets, modern novels, classic essays, jokes, lyrics etc., between Chinese and English. Most of the time I write poems in both English and Chinese. My two translation works, The Dancing Lady On The Street by Zeng Minglu, a Chinese writer from the States, and Talking About Finland by Tangfu, a Chinese writer from Finland were published in Guwahatian, an overseas Electronic journal: http://guwahatian.guwahaticity.in/Vol2_Issue
9/talesofmind_article2.php http://guwahatian.guwahaticity.in/Vo
l2_Issue9/insidebox_article1.php Mr. Xie suggested that I should translate famous English poems into Chinese, so I began to put my heart into working on this book from mid-September, 2015. I searched poems from http://www.poemhunter.com, and selected 100 pieces by 21 renowned poets as original translation materials for this book. I had previously translated some of those poems. Poets in this book include: Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, William Blake, George Gordon Byron, Leonard Cohen, Emily Dickson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Ted Kooser, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Kenn Nesbitt, Ezra Pound, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack Prelutsky, John McCrae, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, Shel Silverstein, Sara Teasdale, Walt Whiteman, and William Butler Yeats.
Contents of these poems include views of love, philosophy of life, aspirations, tracing back one's own history, good wishes for peace, love of American rural life, and campus humor, such as Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Young Sea by Carl Sandburg, The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes, The Pasture by Robert Frost, In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, and My Teacher Ate My Homework by Kenn Nesbitt's and so on.
Readers will learn western views of love and philosophy of life, experience the American rural life, and at the same time, will enjoy the campus humor by bursting into laughter when reading those children's poems. In this book, I selected two to ten poems for each poet for the translation, all are accompanied by the author's bilingual introduction. I did my best to be accurate, vivid and natural when translating the meaning, beauty and the rhyme of each poem into Chinese, trying to lead the reader into the unprecedented western literary world, to explore the charm of English language and western culture.
During the process of translating this book, I received suggestions from Mr. Xu Yingcai, a professor from the States. Professor Xu' books include: A Selection From the Eight Great Prose Masters of The Tang And Song Dynasties, Selected Works Of Contemporary Chinese Prose, and The translation of Chinese Classical Prose. In September, 2015, A Selection From the Eight Great Prose Masters of The Tang And Song Dynasties and Selected Works Of Contemporary Chinese Prose were given to Lincoln High School by the President of the People's Republic of China, Mr. Xi Jinping, as gifts for learning translation, Chinese culture and language, they are also designated materials for students in China to take the entrance exam of the post-graduate study ofclassical literature translation. I have been influenced and inspired by the translation principles promoted by Mr. Xu, which are: accuracy, vividness and naturalness. I am grateful for the invitation from Mr. Xie and the opportunity of working together with him. I appreciate his attitude of helping and encouraging younger people to contribute into the translation field. Nevertheless, due to time limits, please accept my sincerest apologies for any mistakes I may make in this book, and I thank you in advance for your time!
Liu Xiaoman Jan. 16, 2016
在翻译过程中我获得美国徐英才老师的一些建议帮助，特此致谢。 徐英才老师是前复旦大学的英语教师，他的著作【英译唐宋八大家散文精选】和【英译中国经典散文选】是中国国家主席习近平先生在2015年9月份访美期间赠送给美国林肯中学图书馆的外文教材，【英译唐宋八大家散文精选】也是国内高校的古典文学翻译研究生入学考试指定读物。 我追求的是徐英才老师提倡的准确、传神、浑然的三个翻译原则。 感谢谢振煜先生的邀请和合作，感谢他提携晚辈不遗余力, 对后进的支持和鼓励的态度。 本书翻译因为时间匆促，如有错漏的地方，希望读者能谅解、指正。
刘小曼
数年前的一天我和我的加拿大朋友聊天。 我问她是否喜欢诗。 她说她小说看不少，但对诗真的不感冒。 然后说她喜欢一些传统的儿歌，摇篮曲和一些打油诗。
然后她教我以下这首著名的两行诗，而我视这个为我重要的诗歌学习经历，是我诗歌学习和写作生涯的启蒙。 根据我的朋友，这诗是这样子的：
Here I sit broken hearted,
Spent a penny and only farted.
Nov. 20，2015
My Profound Enlightenment of Poetry
One day a few years ago I chatted with one of my Canadian friends. I asked her if she was interested in poems. She said that she had read many novels and stories, but poems indeed are not her cup of tea. Anyway she then told me that she likes some traditional nursery rhymes and lullabies and some limericks as well.
She then taught me the following well-known two lined poem which I believe to be my significant poetry learning experience, my profound enlightenment education in my English poetry learning/ writing life. Based on my friend, they go like this:
"Here I sit broken hearted,
spent a penny and only farted. "
Just like many places around the world today, decades ago in Canada you needed to pay to use a public toilet. Ever since, I started to become very interested in English poems.
Nov. 20，2015
Liu Xiaoman
Crying for attention:
Looking forward to publishing my translated novel The Ghost, written by Xuxu. 【鬼恋】英文版寻求出版。谢谢各位观众留意！
徐訏(1908—1980.10．5) ，浙江慈溪人。1933年北大哲学系毕业，转该校心理学系读研究生。北大读书时发表短篇小说《烟圈》。1934年在上海任《人间世》月刊编辑。1936年发表了短篇小说《郭庆记》。1936年赴法国巴黎大学修哲学，获博十学位。
抗战爆发后回国，居上海。先后任《天地人》、《作风》等刊物主编。1937年发表的短篇小说《鬼恋》，是作者的成名作。1942年赴重庆执教于中央大学。1944 年出版长篇小说《风萧萧》。1948年出版《进香集》等5部诗集，总称《四十诗综》，收1932年以来的诗作。
1950年赴香港，以写作为生，曾与曹聚仁等创办创垦出版社，合办《热风》半月刊。1960年出版描写抗战时期中国社会百态的长篇《江湖行》。1966年起先后任中文大学教授，香港浸会学院文学院院长兼中文系主任。
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