Poetics of Resistance

The Poetics of Resistance night on Friday, 25 March 2011 was a great success, chaired by

Dr. Omar García-Obregón, featuring guest speaker, Chinese poet Yang Lian. TRIPWIRES members read their favourite poems by poets from Kurdistan, Cuba and Nigeria, while Yang Lian and Dr. García-Obregón read some of their own compositions. The discussion afterwards covered topics such as freedom of expression and political resistance, and was very illuminating for all. Click on the thumbnails below to have a look.

Yang Lian also performed a reading of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo's poem 'You Wait For Me With Dust'. As part of the Berlin Literatur Festival, readings of this poem were held all over the world on 20 March 2011 in celebration of his work, and to campaign for his freedom. You can also read the poem for yourself below:

You Wait for Me with Dust

- for my wife, who waits every day

Nothing remains in your name, nothing

but to wait for me, together with the dust of our home

those layers

amassed, overflowing, in every corner

you’re unwilling to pull apart the curtains

and let the light disturb their stillnessover the bookshelf, the handwritten label is covered in dust

on the carpet the pattern inhales the dust

when you are writing a letter to me

and love that the nib’s tipped with dust

my eyes are stabbed with painyou sit there all day long

not daring to move

for fear that your footsteps will trample the dust

you try to control your breathing

using silence to write a story.

At times like this

the suffocating dust

offers the only loyaltyyour vision, breath and time

permeate the dust

in the depth of your soul

the tomb inch by inch is

piled up from the feet

reaching the chest

reaching the throat

you know that the tomb

is your best resting place

waiting for me there

with no source of fear or alarm

this is why you prefer dust

in the dark, in calm suffocation

waiting, waiting for me

you wait for me with dustrefusing the sunlight and movement of air

just let the dust bury you altogether

just let yourself fall asleep in the dust

until I return

and you come awake

wiping the dust from your skin and your soul.

What a miracle – back from the dead.

April 9th 1999

Translated by Zheng Danyi, Shirley Lee and Martin Alexander