BOOK  I, 16

You’ll find good, middling, then bad in spades
among these pages: So, dear reader, books get made.

BOOK I, 23

Bathtime, that’s your banquet’s subtext:
Feasting, soaking, double portions of beef.
My guess why I never got be your guest?
Undressed, I’m not your type. What a relief.

BOOK  I,  28

Acerra stinks of drink from last night on the town:
Not true. He’s been knocking them back since dawn.

BOOK I, 33

For your late dad not a sob when you’re alone;
enter a guest and boohoo, tears gush like rain:
One who fishes for compliments is not in pain;
bona fide suffering proceeds unseen.

BOOK I, 37

Excretion first, Basso’s value system stinks:
His potty’s gold, mere glass the cups from which he drinks.

BOOK I, 47

An undertaker, formerly you were a surgeon—
Career development, the two in your case turn one.

BOOK I, 118

You know people who’ve read these 100 epigrams yet pine
for more? Ring a.) a psychiatrist or b.) 999.

BOOK II, 38

Nosy Parker asks after the profits from my farm out of town.
My answer: Not having to see a certain face, his own.

BOOK III, 8

‘Quintus loves Thais.’ ‘But which?’ ‘The one-eyed one.’
‘Ah, I see. Still Thais has one eye working, he none.’

BOOK  III, 17

A pie was being passed round for the second course,
so hot it scalded all hands that touched it.
Salsido’s greed was roused more than before;
One, two, three, four: emitting gases galore,
he puffed downward. The pie cooled for sure,
but nobody touched a piece. It had turned to . . .

BOOK III, 43

With every haircut, the younger you grow;
Yesterday’s swan has become a crow.
You may fool some, but Proserpine’s in the know
and to rip away your mask is waiting below.

BOOK III, 70

Aufidia’s ex-husband, you’ve now become her lover;
her husband now is your ex-rival, the role reversed.
Cuckold cuckolder, so others’ women outdo your own?
Or without thoughts of being caught you cannot get it on?

BOOK III, 71

Young friend’s got an ache in one end, you in the other:
No need for a diviner, Mr. White-as-Snow, to blow your cover.

BOOK III, 76

Only ladies of a certain age can get your mojo
working; girls, however beautiful, turn it off. A stark
raving headcase are your hormones. What libido
ever preferred granny Hecuba to nubile Andromarque?

BOOK IV, 21

‘Heaven’s empty, the gods do not exist,’
brays Segius. You want proof of his hypothesis?
How, the gods denied, he’s grown rich.

BOOK IV, 50

You chide me, dear Thais, for my each advancing year:
Then kiss me high or, better, low; you’re my elixir.

BOOK IV, 69

You pour for us guests the choicest wines,
albeit rumor begs to disagree:
You’ve outlived, they say, your wife four times.
Benefit of the doubt, but I’m not thirsty.

BOOK IV, 85

Our beakers are glass, yours of agate. Please explain:
Might it be that the wines are not the same?

BOOK V, 13

Okay, Big Shot, I am a perpetual pauper;
That’s not to say I too haven’t been made a ‘Sir.’
Its own currency, my verse gets quoted world over.
What the grave gave few, life itself on me confers.
Your mansion may rest upon a hundred pillars;
add a safe which heaves, estates in the Middle East,
those flocks near Parma raking in a golden fleece:
Where does that leave us? To equal you lies in reach
of any Tom, Dick or Harry. Soon we’ll both be dead,
but you’ll stay so, period; at least I shall be read.

BOOK V, 18

‘But I never dine at home,’ such is Philo’s boast.
Invite friends? When to himself he won’t play host?

BOOK V, 34

I commend—genetrix Flacilla, Fronto pater—
this girl who was lately my delight;
of the shades below may she have no fear,
neither of Cerberus nor his bite.
From reaching the winter of her sixth year
she was cut short by as many days too few.
Among patrons of yore let her now play,
chirruping my name in pastures new.
Spare, insensate clods, her tender bones. Clay,
weigh as gently on her as she weighed on you.

BOOK V, 45

‘Sono bello,’ boasts Berlo, ‘and vigorous and youthful.’
If you say so, but anything but truthful.

BOOK V, 64

Pour me, Callistus, a flagon of Falernian red;
you, Alcimus, cool it with summer snows.
Anoint, while it’s still there, my hair
then weave soft roses around my head:
Augustus’s Mausoleum just down the road
urges ‘carpe diem’: even gods can end up dead.

BOOK V, 73

Theodore, you’re a drill with no off switch,
imploring that I forward you my every booklet:
Why then do I refuse? Talk about just cause—
It is lest, in return, you send me yours.

BOOK V, 83

You chase me, I flee; you flee and I give chase—
Both ways willy-nilly here in cupid’s maze.

BOOK VI, 44

Life and soul of the party, a god-sent right
to crack jokes at anyone’s but your own expense—
in your mind a star, guest par excellence?
Thus a certain Calliodorus, 95 AD—

2013, the ‘Pink Viper.’ One comment from me

c.f. yours truly, that table would take flight.

BOOK VI, 48

One of your goblets comes engraved with serpents
which would be worthy of a Michelangelo—
A pity, though, as regards the contents—
Half ‘plonc’, half venom, a snake’s hello.

BOOK VII, 16

Re. you gifts: Now I’m broke, living in a shack,
any chance you might kindly buy them back?

BOOK VII, 62

Across the backside of official paper Picens pens verse,
then gets offended when Apollo turns arse-first.

BOOK VII, 64

Here, as barber, you were top of the heap. Then bingo!
Lady’s legacy and you’ve snatched up a knighthood.
To flee a court-case common among the Great and the Good
you hotfoot it down to Nowheresville, Sicily:
Which skill will now see you through the years?
Draughts? Cards? Dog-eared Gazzettas dello Sport?
Umpteenth coffee or amaro out in the piazza?
Imitating Etna by lighting one more cigarette?
No rector, you, not even a poor language teacher.
Stoics, Cynics alike boast some crumbs of comfort;
In your booklet, they could both be soccer teams.
Better head back to Rome, its napes, pates, beards.

MARCUS VALERIUS MARTIALIS: EPIGRAMMATA

LIBER I, XVI

Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura
quae legis hic: aliter non fit, Avite, liber.

LIBER I,  XXIII

 Invitas nullum nisi cum quo, Cotta, lavaris
et dant convivam balnea sola tibi.
Mirabar quare numquam me, Cotta, vocasses:
iam scio me nudum displicuisse tibi.

LIBER I,  XXVIII

Hesterno fetere mere qui credit Acerram,
fallitur. in lucem semper Acerra bibit.

LIBER I,  XXXIII

Amissum non flet cum sola est Gellia patrem,
si quis adest iussae prosiliunt lacrimae.
Non luget quiquis laudari, Gellia, quarit,
ille dolet vere qui sine teste dolet.

LIBER I, XXXVII

Ventris onus misero, nec te pudet, excipis auro
Basso bibis vitro; carius ergo cacas.

LIBER I, XLVII

Nuper erat medicus, nunc est vispillo Diaulus:
quod vispillo facit, fecerat et medicus.

LIBER I, CXVIII

Cui legisse satis non est epigrammata centum,
nil illi satis est, Caediciane, mali.

LIBER  II, XXXVIII

Quid mihi reddat ager quaeris, Line, Nomentanus?
Hoc mihi reddit ager: te, Line, non video.

LIBER III, VIII

‘Thaida Quintus amat.’ ‘Quam Thaida?’ ‘Thaida luscam.’
Unum oculum Thais non habet, ille duos.

LIBER  III, XVII

Circumlata diu mensis scribilita secundis
urebat nimio saeva calore manus;
sed magis ardebat Sabidi gula: protinus ergo
sufflavit buccis terque quaterque suis.
Illa quidem tepuit digitisque admittere visa est,
sed nemo potuit tangere: merda fuit.

LIBER III, XLIII

Mentiris iuvenem tinctis, Laetine, capillis,
tam subito corvus, qui modo cycnus eras.
Non omnes fallis; scit te Proserpina canum:
personam capiti detrahet illa tuo.

 LIBER III, LXX

Moechus es Aufidiae, qui vir, Scaevinie, fuisti;
Rivalis fuerat qui tuus, ille vir est.
Cur aliena placet tibi, quae tua non placet, uxor?
Numquid secures non potes arrigere?

LIBER III, LXXI

Mentula cum doleat puero, tibi, Naevole, culus,
non sum divinus, sed scio quid facias. 

LIBER III, LXXVI

Arrigis ad vetulas, fastidis, Basse, puellas,
nec formonsa tibi sed moritura placet.
Hic, rogo, non furor est, non haec est mentula demens?
cum possis Hecaben, non potes Andromachen!

LIBER IV, XXI 

Nullos esse deos, inane caelum
Adfirmat Segius: probatque, quod se
Factum, dum negat haec, videt beatum

 LIBER IV, L 

Quid me. Thai, senem subinde dicis?
Nemo est, Thai, senex ad irrumandum.

LIBER 1V, LXIX

Tu Setina quidem semper vel Massica ponis,
Papyle, sed rumor tam bona vina negat:
diceris hac factus caeleps quater esse lagona.
Nec puto nec credo, Papyle, nec sitio. 

LIBER IV, LXXXV

Nos bibimus vitro, tu murra, Pontice. Quare?
Prodat perspicuus ne duo vina calix.

LIBER V,  XIII

Sum, fateor, semperque fui, Callistrate, pauper,
     sed non obscurus nec male notus eques,
sed toto legor orbe frequens et dicitur “Hic est”;
     quodque cinis paucis, hoc mihi vita dedit.
At tua centenis incumbunt tecta columnis              
     et libertinas arca flagellat opes,
magnaque Niliacae servit tibi gleba Syenes,
     tondet et innumeros Gallica Parma greges.
Hoc ego tuque sumus: sed quod sum non potes esse;
     tu quod es, e populo quilibet esse potest.  

LIBER V,  XVIII

Numquam e cenasse domi Philo iurat, et hoc est :
non cenat, quotiens nemo vocavit eum.

LIBER V, XXXIV

Hanc tibi, Fronto pater, genetrix Flaccilla, puellam
     oscula commendo deliciasque meas,
paruola ne nigras horrescat Erotion umbras
     oraque Tartarei prodigiosa canis.
Impletura fuit sextae modo frigora brumae,              
     uixisset totidem ni minus illa dies.
Inter tam veteres ludat lasciva patronos
     et nomen blaeso garriat ore meum.
Mollia non rigidus caespes tegat ossa nec illi,
     terra, grauis fueris: non fuit illa tibi.

LIBER V, 45

 Dicis formonsam, dici te, Bassa, puellam.
Istud quae non est dicere, Bassa, solet.

LIBER V, 64

Sextantes, Calliste, duos infunde Falerni,
tu super aestivas, alcime, solve nives,
pinguescat nimio madidus mihi crinis amomo
lassenturque rosis tempora sutilibus.
tam vicina iubent nos vivere Mausolea,
cum doceant ipsos posse perire deos.

LIBER V, LXXIII

Non donem tibi cur meos libellos
oranti totiens et exigenti
miraris, Theodore? Magna causa est:
dones tu mihi ne tuos libellos

LIBER VI, XLIV

Festive credis te, Calliodore, iocari
Et solum multo permaduisse sale.
Omnibus adrides, dicteria dicis in omnis;
Sic te convivam posse placer putas.
At si ergo non belle, sed vere dixero quiddam,
Nemo propinabit, Calliodore, tibi.

LIBER VI, XLVIII

Quod tam grande sophos clamat tibi turba togata,
non tu, Pomponi, cena diserta tua est.

LIBER  VII, XVI

Aera domi non sunt, sperest hoc, Regule, solum,
Ut tua vendamus munera: numquid emis?

LIBER VII, LXII

Scribit in aversa Picens epigrammata charta,
et dolet a verso quod facit illa deo.

LIBER VII, LXIV

Qui  tonsor tota fueras notissimus urbe,
et post hoc dominae munere factus eques,
Sicanias urbes Aetnaeaque regna petisti,
Cinname, cum fugeres tristia iura fori.
qua nunc arte graves tolerabis inutilis annos?
quid facit infelix et fugitiva quies?
Non rethor, non Grammaticus ludive magister,
non Cynicus, non tu Stoicus esse potes,
vendere nec vocem Siculis plausumque theatris,
quod superest, iterum, Cinname, tonsor eris.

Translator’s Note

Leave myth, legend, and related heroics to others. In Martial’s work, life-as-it-is-lived is the thing. Hence the title “Martial 2016,” for the effect is often astonishingly modern: rent boys, escorts, mutton dressed as lamb, plagiarists, corrupt gladiators’ (cf. footballers’) agents; scroungers, drunkards, barbers retired or practicing, gold-diggers galore; then the perennially struggling poet: they’re all here. Having lived in Rome for fifteen years, I can vouch that the Romans’ acerbic streak is still intact, making Martial one of the most read—and pertinent—of Latin poets.

Martin Bennett lives in Rome, where he teaches and proofreads at the University of Tor Vergata while contributing occasional articles to Wanted in Rome. He was the 2015 winner of the John Dryden translation prize.

Hailing from distant Spain, Martial casts a cold, now wry, now scurrilous eye on the pretensions and foibles of “Caput mundi.” Arriving in the capital at 24, he hoped to use the Spanish connection with the philosopher Seneca, among others, to get on in the world and avoid becoming just another  lawyer. After Seneca’s forced suicide, Martial was left without support. Forced to seek patronage to survive, he became the archetypal struggling poet, acquiring some support under emperor Titus, only to have it snatched away under the paranoiac Domitian. Eventually he returned to Spain. His friend, Pliny the Younger, paid Martial’s expenses while sniffing that his work “would not endure.” Martial’s place on Parnassus long since secured, one can envision this poet as the ultimate underdog made good, penning a couplet on the same theme, while translators—this one included—throng the lower slopes, only too happy to receive it.

Like a prodigal son, Lufuluabo returns. He returns from a long and difficult journey. He will have to get used to the new manners and new names of the avenues and principal squares of the city: Avenue Mobuto ^[1] is now L. D. Kabila ^[2] Street; the images of President Mobutu have been replaced by bigger and more numerous ones of President L. D. Kabila; the little market once known as “Soko ya Bazungu” because of the wares that were displayed there has moved, and is now L. D. Kabila Market. The people usually call it “the market of Mzee.” The governor, Kyungu wa Kumwanza, ^[3] for reasons of his own, has also renamed certain areas and avenues: the road that leads to the working-class district Katuba now bears his name. The Place de L’Étoile has become Place Moïse Tshombe; ^[4] Avenue Kasai has become Avenue Munongo, ^[5] and the Katuba Kananga ^[6] neighborhood has become Katuba Kaponda ^[7].… So many changes! The contradiction is great. The public places and roads are full of potholes, mud, and pools of filthy water, but this matters less than the worthy names they bear.

He returns, he who left the country as a very young man to study in Grenoble, swearing he would never come back. After a first round of coursework in different fields, he married a Frenchwoman who later on fled with her West African lover, a marabout who was living in France under the protection of one of the big guns in French politics. In hunting them down, he ended up homeless in Paris, a fixture of certain Metro entrances: Barbès–Rochechouart at first, then Réaumur–Sébastopol, and finally La Motte-Picquet–Grenelle.

Like the prodigal son, he returns heavy with memories of the paternal home. In his mind’s eye, he again sees the zoo and the big chimney of the state mining company, Gécamines, puffing bluish breath from its lungs with arrogance and pride, a symbol of the company’s historic ascent and Abel’s offering giving glory to his Creator.

His father had been an executive officer in the company and his older brother—his only brother, an engineer from the Official University of Congo—was one, too, but posted to Kolwezi, that tiny city of pleasure! Nothing but pleasure there, let me assure you!

Luano International Airport is a far cry from Roissy Charles de Gaulle, from where he had caught his plane only a few hours before. An old man, shabbily dressed, greets him with joy:

“Wako! Wako! Wako!”

He translates the Swahili expression mechanically as “yours,” and says in reply, “wako,” as if to affirm “I am one of yours.” He doesn’t understand that the old man refers to his origins to obtain some favor…. How much has changed!

Despite all the marvels he saw in France, the memory of the zoo has never left him. His child’s mind was really marked by that space. The big public buses no longer exist. They have been replaced by vans called “taxi-buses,” inside of which mothers-in-law and sons-in-law shamelessly scramble their legs. A taxi-bus pulls up while he is looking for the stop. The conductor hails him, shouting out his destination:

“Gécamines?”

He takes his seat. He is the last to pile in. A woman looks at him and says, with a smile:

“Wako! Wako! Wako!”

“Wako!” he answers back.

Everyone turns around to stare at him. He doles out an easy smile while nodding his head.

At the zoo’s entrance, the ticket seller is nowhere to be found but the gate is wide open. After a moment of hesitation, he decides to enter. A loudspeaker plays some song or other by Wenge Musica at full blast. Such loud noise, he thinks, must disturb the animals.

He stops himself from admonishing a young man in his twenties who practices dance moves in front of the loudspeaker instead of going to work. He makes his way to the crocodile pond.  An old couple of caimans—seemingly starving—warm themselves in the sun, waiting to see which will be the first to die. The reptile cage, which once took his breath away with an upwelling of admiration and fear, is empty. The way to the den of the black bear—that gigantic, impressive hulk—is impassable. He retraces his steps. Almost all of the paths are deserted. The few people he meets say pathetically:

“Wako! Wako! Wako!”

What a surprise!

He decides to visit the former office of his late father to pay his respects. The building looks dilapidated. The parking lot is empty even though it’s ten a.m. He mounts the flight of steps in an athletic burst. In the begrimed waiting room, an old security guard in a faded uniform drowses behind a broken secretary desk. She starts, and says, in a shrill voice:

“Wako! Wako! Wako!”

This time he goes past without answering. From a window on the other side of the room, he notices the unmown grass and straggly flowers. Falling to his knees, he looks out at the dead chimney that no longer emits anything at all, raises his hands toward the sky, and cries out in desperation, “Mother, we have sinned against you; we are no longer worthy to be called your children!”

All footnotes are the author’s.

^[1] Mobutu: the second president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, he ruled for thirty-two years as a dictator.

^[2] L. D. Kabila: the third president, who led the so-called “War of Liberation.”

^[3] Kyungu wa Kumwanza: Katangan leader who initiated the ethnic cleansing of Kasaians in Katanga during the 1990s.

^[4] Moïse Tshombe: Katangan leader who led the Katangan secession.

^[5] Munongo: former associate of Moïse Tshombe, also known as “Kifwakiyo” or “The Broom.”

^[6] Kananga: capital city of Kasai-Occidental province.

^[7] Kaponda: traditional chief of the Bemba people from the southern DRC.

Translator’s Note

A combination of Aimé Césaire’s Notebook of a Return to the Native Land and the biblical parable of the prodigal son, Kayembe’s short story narrates the anguished return from diaspora of one of Congo’s native sons. The matter of place—real and remembered—is central to the effect of this story set between metropolitan France and the mining city of Lubumbashi in the southeastern section of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Clocking in at just a tick under 1000 words, Kayembe’s compact narrative succeeds in conveying the despair of a no longer young man returning from France to find his country bereft of the landmarks of his childhood.

When I translated “The Revenant,” I was serving as a pro bono French-language translator and interpreter at the Program for Survivors of Torture at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Owing to this work, I became increasingly drawn to Francophone African literatures of conflict and migration. Kayembe’s story seized my attention because it is a cri de cœur, a story that refuses the balm of hope. An editor I showed it to observed that it “feels like the beginning of some larger action, which then just cuts short.” Rather than as a lack of completion, I see this “cutting short,” or refusal to develop into narrative fullness, as a mark of the story’s stance toward personal and political futurity. Packed with allusion to the harsh history of Belgian colonialism and decades of postcolonial strife, in its final lines, the story abjures the moral function of the parable it at first appeared to be. The uninstructive affliction of the character returning to his homeland offers neither hindsight nor optimism.

Along with its brevity and parable-like qualities, the story’s tone of bitter understatement and its mobilization of the Swahili word “wako” as a central motif were interesting features for the translator. The footnotes in the story appear in the French edition. Transliteration of African proper nouns has been changed, where necessary, to reflect standard English spelling.

J. Bret Maney is an assistant professor of English at Lehman College, The City University of New York, where his areas of interest are American literature and culture, the practice and theory of translation, and the digital humanities. He is a past recipient of a grant from the PEN/Heim Translation Fund as well as several other translation awards. He translates from the French and Spanish.

Christophe Kayembe was born in 1955 in the copper-mining city of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is the author of stories, plays, and a novel, and has won various African literary prizes. “The Revenant,” which was published in the French-language anthology edited by Dominique Ranaivoson, Chroniques du Katanga (Sépia, 2007), is his first work to be translated into English. The story appears here with permission of the copyright holder, Éditions Sépia.

— The sea is so blue, the valley so deep. That’s why sadness goes far and wide. But you must stare it in the eye. Only by braving it will you outgrow the child and be an adult. To the children at Gangkou Elementary School, Hualien County, Taiwan.

Ina often calls my name on this side
and asks me to buy betel nuts from Pilaw the grocer on the other side.
An impolite mountain road cuts through the entrance of my house.
It has a number like my seat number at school.
Its number is eleven. Mine is nine.

Last year, on the way to my house to play,
Kacaw’s dog was hit on the road and died.
Ina said,
“After all, it was a doggie, not a person.”
Since then, a new curved mirror appeared
at the intersection of our neighborhood—
facing Pilaw’s betel nut counter.
We thought Pilaw loved looking at herself in the mirror
and even laughed at her in secret. But
only us the children would go up to the mirror,
watch our faces change shape, grow big, turn funny.
Ina said the road hadn’t existed before;
the tribe had been a single whole, boundless to run.
The beach used to be our path.
Grandpa walked along it to preach, all the way to Shuilian Village.
The sea waves recorded his footprints and kept him from drowning.
Now, the mountain road brings in lots of city folks
and takes away our betel nuts and whitebait.
The beach has slowly disappeared
in a swamp of sticky rice dumplings
where Kacaw and I would climb up,
play hide and seek, and catch kalang.
As our road enters the mountains,
it goes across two peaks and reaches my house.
On the opposite side are a grocery store and a church.
Many elders, thinking it’s no different from the past,
cross the road as if taking a stroll.
The cars would roll down their window,
shouting ma la sun in our face.
But Grandpa won’t go to a padawsi in a suit.
He’s going to the church over that ………… side.
The road isn’t wide, only cars are fast.
So we form a line to see God.

是誰把部落切成兩半？

——海是那樣藍，山谷是那樣深，所以更會有遍地傷心。但你／妳必須要去逼視，唯有如此，才能從一個小孩長成為一個男人／女人。獻給港口國小的孩子們。

ina 常常在這邊呼喊我的名字
我去那邊的雜貨店跟Pilaw買一包檳榔
一條沒有禮貌的山路開過我家大門
它跟我一樣有座號
它是11號  我是9號

去年，Kacaw的狗來找我玩時
被撞死在路上
ina 說：
「只是小狗沒關係，還好不是人。」
從此以後，四鄰的路口多了一根
凹凹凸凸的鏡子——
對著Pilaw的檳榔攤照
我們以為是Pilaw愛照鏡子
還躲起來偷偷笑她     但其實
我們小孩子才會一直跑到鏡子前面
看我們的臉變形變大變得很好笑
ina 說以前才沒有這條馬路
整個部落都是連在一起   可以跑來跑去
我們的路走在沙灘上
阿公沿著沙灘到水璉去傳教
海浪會記得他的腳印   不會把他淹沒
現在山路載來了好多都市的人
也載走我們的檳榔、魩仔魚
海灘就漸漸消失
浮了好多肉粽上來
我跟Kacaw 都會爬在上面玩躲貓貓
還可以抓 kalang1
我們的路走進了山裏
沿著路穿過兩座山就會來到我家門口
路的另一邊有雜貨店和教堂
很多老人到現在還以為是從前
過馬路就像在散步
車子就會搖下車窗來罵人
說我們馬拉桑了啦
但是阿公才不會穿西裝把導係2
他是要去那……一邊的教堂
馬路沒有很寬只是車很快
所以我們都要排隊見上帝

1. 阿美語「螃蟹」之意。
2. padawsi，阿美族人在家庭、朋友團聚的場合，喝酒、唱歌、聊天的行為。

Translator’s Note

Among Taiwan’s predominantly Han Chinese population, about two percent, or 550,000, are aborigines from more than twenty tribes. The largest of these tribes is the Amis, whose life and culture are explored in “Who Cut the Tribe in Half?”

Albeit in many ways assimilated, the Amis preserve their traditions in everyday life. Yet they face increasing challenges brought by the dominance of the Han Chinese majority and the impact of land development, as depicted in “Who Cut the Tribe in Half?” Through the innocent voice of the anonymous child speaker, the poem describes a literal division of the tribe by external forces. Jade G. Huang dedicates the poem to the students at Gangkou Elementary School, where she taught in 2012. The school has a very small student population totaling thirty to forty per year, and almost all students are from the Amis tribe. In the poem, kalang means “crab” in the Amis language. Ma la sun is a Sinicized term for “drunk,” originally from the Amis. Padawsi means a party or get-together among families or friends.

I first met Huang at a poetry festival in Taiwan in summer 2016. She read a poem about a fatal accident of a boy studying at Gangkou. The deep feelings that Huang, a Han Chinese teacher, had for her Amis student, expressed subtly in that poem, were part of her core concern for the Amis’ future. Huang’s poems engage readers with questions that ultimately pertain to pangcha, an Amis term by which the tribe address themselves, meaning “human being.”

Elaine Wong received a PhD in English at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She translates literature from Taiwan and researches visual poetry while teaching Linguistics at Trinity University in San Antonio. Translating poems from Taiwan helps her reacquaint with a birthplace of which she has little memory. Her poems, translations, and scholarly essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Exchanges, Grey Sparrow, International Poetry Review, L2, Modern Poetry in Translation, Reunion, TAB, The Taipei Chinese PEN, Transference, and others.

Jade G. Huang lives in Hualien, Taiwan. She recently obtained a Master’s degree at the Graduate Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies at Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University. Her thesis is titled “The Reproduction of Hualien Urban Space Under Capitalism.” Huang’s first poetry book, Who Cut the Tribe in Half?, received the inaugural Yang Mu Poetry Award in 2014. The poem “Who Cut the Tribe in Half?” won the first prize of the Lin Rongsan Literary Awards in Poetry in 2012. Huang was a Santa Fe Art Institute Fellow in 2015 and gave her first performance art and poetry presentation at the Institute.