Hsieh Kun-hua / 解昆樺

Hsieh Kun-Hua（b. 1977）, an aborigine from Pingpu tribe in Miaoli County, is currently teaching in Department of Chinese Literature National Chung Hsing University , Taiwan . He has published “The Metaphors of Mind”, “The Unrest of Poetry” and “Translating Modernity”. He won a number of honors including the first place of Taiwan Literature Award of the Council for Cultural Affairs, Fine Arts Creation Award of the Ministry of Education, National Culture and Arts Foundation’s Creative Work Grants, and National Award for Outstanding Young Poet.

E-mail：fung682002@gmail.com

        Exchange / 交換

Exchange a day of a tree’s with that of a bird’s;

exchange a day of wanders’ and that of the waiting people’s;

exchange a day of ankle chains’ and that of trainers’;

Exchange a day of women’s and that of men’s.

Exchange a day of fields’ and that of gardens’;

exchange a day of and that of rice plant wave’s and sea wave’s;

exchange a day of tower tops’ and that of dungeons’;

exchange a day of poets’ and that of novelists’;

Exchange a day of Purple’s with that of Blue’s;

exchange a day of and that of Loved’s and Never-loved’s;

exchange a day of Living’s

with that of Ever-lived’s.

        Reaping War of Love / 收割愛的戰事  

A raincoat hung over the opposite balcony

waves sleeves hard in the wind  .

The bloated and transparent chest in the air

is like holding a book of nihilism in the arms

to walk over the end of the century, to walk over

the age of love being reaped.

Wars happened occasionally which showed no signs to cease as the rain came down

The outer building of the outer building, further away,

the far place thundered alarm as flashing as the bolt.

I also wanted a raincoat

to head to there alone,

a fire work festival with gunshots and bullets

The news of victims spread out with the ringing of the evening bell.

On the point when blood was unavoidably to well in the wounds, and

on the river-basin where the desolate land had rage bloomed,

I stretched my arms out of my body

being bombarded under the bright red rain

and stood silently as a cross

        A born-to-be traveler / 天生旅人

The fish scales were all over the sky

The morning sun shone through.

The volition I hid in the amber

had emerged one after another.

The never-ceasing longing

always rose with enthusiasm, anymore setbacks

could not hold it back

I travelled in various strongholds on the plain

the world was also spiraling and growing in my mind.

the distant place was compressed within inches

all the meanings were generated from my own

Wars, attacks, exploitation……

All of the inescapable pain. I know everything

so I endeavored in my poetry

to increase all little happiness:

a cup of warm coffee in the winter; in the autumn,

the bench on the fallen leaves, in the spring; the slowly

rising sky lanterns; in the summer, ripen rice field where egrets landed in groups.

Greater ideal to make better world,

as to the creators in the 90s, is too stereotypical.

I am also scared of going back to the composition class in my youth,

but the image of the backs of the sugarcane famers who shook their fists,

1the image of the backs of the Taiwanese young soldiers who were on the tramp in the Southeast Asian rain forest,

the image of the backs of the writers of the 60s who humped in front of their desks sketching freedom, and

the images of the backs of whom tied white cloth strip on their heads and held microphones tightly in their hands on the street in 1970s.

All these, all these, are put in my mind

and cultivated in the dense forest of image, in this world. The ideal

is only known by poetry.

I also sew the images of the backs in time

and put them into the long river of history for a journey

I don’t know what a fallen leaf I am on the river

At this moment of the history, a rootless sigh of nihility in 1950s

rides on the rewinding aged cassette.      

The morning mist produced by them covers my ears.

The thunder produced by them whips my umbilical cord.

Despite I know,

the children born on this land are doomed to suffer,

doomed to be at this endless long corridor for thousands of

and hundreds of retracing.