Poem
Yang Li
Albania
back in those days all of us knew about Albania there was no one who didn’t know it was a bright light of European socialism the other bright light was ourselves. back in those days from Beijing to Tirana, we all knew the song with a friend who knows your heart, distance won’t keep you apart. it was only later I realized that these were lines by the Tang-dynasty poet Wang Bo he died long ago, and never went to Tirana of course, we knew nothing about the place: that it was actually extremely small a friend of our, Wei Guo, once said to us mysteriously: the whole of Albania is like the ancient Chinese kingdom of Yelang. I remember this, and I guarantee: it was in 1974 and we had all just turned 12. we thought what he said was reactionary
© Translation: 2006, Simon Patton
ALBANIA
© 2006, Yang Li
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Albania
back in those days all of us knew about Albania there was no one who didn’t know it was a bright light of European socialism the other bright light was ourselves. back in those days from Beijing to Tirana, we all knew the song with a friend who knows your heart, distance won’t keep you apart. it was only later I realized that these were lines by the Tang-dynasty poet Wang Bo he died long ago, and never went to Tirana of course, we knew nothing about the place: that it was actually extremely small a friend of our, Wei Guo, once said to us mysteriously: the whole of Albania is like the ancient Chinese kingdom of Yelang. I remember this, and I guarantee: it was in 1974 and we had all just turned 12. we thought what he said was reactionary
© 2006, Simon Patton
Albania
back in those days all of us knew about Albania there was no one who didn’t know it was a bright light of European socialism the other bright light was ourselves. back in those days from Beijing to Tirana, we all knew the song with a friend who knows your heart, distance won’t keep you apart. it was only later I realized that these were lines by the Tang-dynasty poet Wang Bo he died long ago, and never went to Tirana of course, we knew nothing about the place: that it was actually extremely small a friend of our, Wei Guo, once said to us mysteriously: the whole of Albania is like the ancient Chinese kingdom of Yelang. I remember this, and I guarantee: it was in 1974 and we had all just turned 12. we thought what he said was reactionary
© 2006, Simon Patton
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