Advice to a Poet

We’ll let you go now, comrade poet.
The writings in your quarterly
Really don’t make much sense.
Worst of all are the poems.
Who’d read your profitless words,
When one and all are busy
Reading their fortune at the stocks?

We’ll let you go now, comrade poet.
You’re granted MFN parole,
And room is at a premium
In detention centers and reeducation farms.
Right-right
Is your diagnosis.

We’ll let you go now, comrade poet.
But your thousand copies
Will be such a nuisance,
Pending correct decision
By Higher Authorities.
Go now, come home do business,
Don’t dabble in poetical nonsense.

1994

Note: On his way to Hong Kong from the mainland, the Chinese poet Bei Ling was detained by the police in Shenzhen with a thousand copies of a new issue of his literary magazine Qingxiang (Tendency) before he entered Hong Kong in early spring, 1994

Last Updated: August 16, 2004