Shelly Bryant divides her year between Shanghai and Singapore, working as a poet, writer, and translator. She is the author of eight volumes of poetry (Alban Lake and Math Paper Press), a pair of travel guides for the cities of Suzhou and Shanghai (Urbanatomy), and a book on classical Chinese gardens (Hong Kong University Press). She has translated work from the Chinese for Penguin Books, Epigram Publishing, the National Library Board in Singapore, Giramondo Books, and Rinchen Books. Shelly’s poetry has appeared in journals, magazines, and websites around the world, as well as in several art exhibitions. Her translation of Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012, and her translation of You Jin’s In Time, Out of Place was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2016. You can visit her website at shellybryant.com.
Jisei, 2003
In some cultures, it is noble to take one’s own life for honor and loyalty.
In most cultures, it is noble to give one’s life for another, even if not to take it with one’s own hand.
I do not hesitate. I plunge. I preserve not life, not its seed, but the possibility of both.
I bid Europa farewell as I fall.
This is what I was made for, my pro-life suicide dive.
built to destroy
in preserving your hopes
– Jupiter calls
~
Prayer and Meditation
indifference an admirable goal
when polar opposites remain
such close cousins – phobia and fetish
sink and swim, left and right
must no religion always mean
we are left without a prayer
~
when Copernicus said
we are not the universe’s centre
they mocked and held it against him
then held it over him
why is it their names
that no one now remembers?