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The Poetry Translation Centre gives the best contemporary poems from Africa, Asia and Latin America a new life in the English language, working with diaspora communities for whom poetry is of great importance.

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Podcast <p>This week’s Dual Poetry Podcast is a poem from Chinese Poet Yu Yoyo from her World Poets Series collection ‘My Tenantless Body’ translated by Dave Haysom, A K Blakemore.</p>

Empty Town by Yu Yoyo

7th November

This week’s Dual Poetry Podcast is a poem from Chinese Poet Yu Yoyo from her World Poets Series collection ‘My Tenantless Body’ translated by Dave Haysom, A K Blakemore.

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Featured Poem

  • Empty Town

    carry loneliness on your shoulder
    from the navel upward void
     
    collapse
    the physiological necessity
    of drinking a glass…

    Continue reading the English translation

    空城

    把孤独扛在肩上
    肚脐以上的部位都视为无效
    比如去喝一杯水
    应该打破它的实际意义
    不是人体需求
    而是要把空荡的房间
    全部淹没
     
    来去的声音都把
    你当作码头一样环绕
    接着是电视机里的人像
    正在施行暴力
    而你却毫发无伤
    这未免太过无趣
     
    …

    Continue reading in Chinese

    Portrait of Yu Yoyo

    Empty Town

    Written by

    Yu Yoyo

    Translated by

    A K Blakemore

    Bridge translation by

    Dave Haysom