The title of this book, the first bilingual collection of work by Taiwanese poet Hsia Yu, is apt. In fact, translator Steve Bradbury, a professor at National Central University in Taiwan, says that what first drew him to Yu's poetry was that it was both "very Chinese and refreshingly cosmopolitan." For most poets writing in Chinese, these are necessarily contradictory conditions. The desire to affirm a cultural or national identity in the face of increasing Western influence is strong. But Yu, who lives in France, apparently doesn't grapple too hard with this problem. One of the first woman poets writing in Chinese to have broken dramatically from the conventions and constraints of traditional Chinese poetry, she's just as happy among the mysteries of Paris as in the warrens of her native Taipei.
A popular lyricist and author of four books of poetry, Yu's musical, cosmopolitan poetry is hard to pigeonhole. She avoids a lyric or elegiac poetic voice, and has refused to cultivate a signature style, preferring instead the eclectic use of various postmodern techniques, such as pastiche, montage and repetition, and the quirky fusion of high philosophy and low culture/kitsch. Sometimes she seems to be flying in the face of convention, flaunting her wit and tossing a philosophical wink out to the universe, mocking the seriousness of the enterprise of life. Other times, she's dead serious and probing. It's all material for art. It's all a game, it's all laughable, she seems to say. Here, she takes a traditional marriage poem and serenades sardines in rhyme, perhaps offering a whimsical allegory, perhaps not.
Lying in its bed of tomato sauce (or is it catsup?) Our fish may not quite relish its position; But what does the sea know of this, in its deep abyss? Or the shore, for that matter, no less the sea, as they say. 'Tis a tale told in scarlet (or is it cherry red?); Whatever -- a little silly this matchup; Which is to say it is, in point of fact, A saucy tale about catsup.