Senility
The blurry world
suddenly becomes clear, as clear as a childhood obsession —
Finally wearing an old man’s glasses. Words both close and far
suddenly become clear. The blurry world
suddenly becomes clear, as clear as a childhood obsession —
squatting, my face toward the earth
I watch ants transporting food, in their seconds-hand hastiness
forgetting the sky exists
a bird darts by from the window
I raise my head, gaze far out, I’m enveloped by dizziness, want to vomit
Li Li was born in Shanghai in 1961. He moved to Sweden in 1988 to study contemporary Swedish literature at Stockholm University. In 1989, he published a book of poems in Swedish called Visions in Water, and subsequently published Escape, Return, You Are My Home, and Origin, among other poetry collections. He has won many poetry awards, including the 2008 The Sweden Daily’s Award for Literature and the inaugural Clock Kingdom Award. In addition to introducing Chinese poetry to Swedish readers, he has also translated Tomas Transtromer’s complete works into Chinese.
Eleanor Goodman is the author of the poetry collection Nine Dragon Island (2016), and the translator of Something Crosses My Mind: Selected Poems of Wang Xiaoni (2014), Iron Moon: An Anthology of Chinese Workers Poetry (2017), The Roots of Wisdom: Poems by Zang Di (2017), and Days When I Hide My Corpse in a Cardboard Box: Poems of Natalia Chan (2018). She is a research associate at the Harvard University Fairbank Center.
