Spittoon Presents: Wooden Shutters From Issue 7

Spittoon Presents: A cinematic disposition threads through the poems of Zhu Yiye, a lilting litany of images possessive of their own sensations. Taking advantage fully of poetry’s more compact nature, Zhu does not tell so much as direct the eye here and there, giving the reader that thrilling sense of noticing. In “Wooden Shutters”, translator Liuyu Ivy Chen transmits the haunting voyeurism of the original, allowing the envisionings to echo through. Translated by Liuyu Ive Chen.

This poem comes from the latest issue of the Spittoon Literary Magazine, which launched this past weekend. If you missed the launch party, you can still get your copy by scanning the QR code below.

Wooden Shutters

The sea tilts
Receding fast
Dizzying

Sea-wind salts lips
And thins voices

In the bright street
Close your eyes
You’ll still see
Them, the old worn
Wooden shutters

Sucking desperately at
The shade
Inside the windows

Peeking at the Fushun man
And the French girl
Cut to stripes
By the shutters

Trying to make out
Minced steps
Ruffled shirts
Creaky bedstead
Murmurs and moans
Curses and cries
Splashes of ladled water

The pink boulder
With burning grains
An obscured cave
Seeping water
Endless seeping
Of acrid sea-water

And the ship on the sea will be
Eaten by ants

The wooden shutters will be
Eaten by ants

The man and the girl have long been
Eaten by ants

Zhu Yiye is a writer, poet, and filmmaker living in Yantai, China. Her short stories and poems in English translation have appeared or are forthcoming from the Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel, LIT Magazine, Washington Square Review, and No Tokens. She has published two story collections in China: Si yu xiang ti (Killed by an Elephant Hoof, 2018) and Chi maque de shaonu (A Girl Who Eats Sparrows 2019). The latter won first prize in the literary category of the 5th Read Douban Creative Writing Contest in China.

Liuyu Ivy Chen is a poet, writer, and translator living in Atlanta. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Hanging Loose Magazine, Columbia Journal, the Ploughshares Blog, the Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among others. She received an MFA in poetry from New York University and co-founded TransWords.net.

READ: Spittoon Issue 7 Sneak Peek: "The Younger Cousin"

Image courtesy of the Spittoon Collective