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[Throughout 2018, we have committed to publishing a selection of poems from each month of Ian Boyden’s manuscript “A Forest of Names.” Over the course of a year, Boyden translated the 5,196 names of schoolchildren crushed in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. He then began a collection of poems, each written on the day of each child’s birth. An in-depth discussion of these poems can be read in “Fault Line: An Introduction to A Forest of Names.” —Eds.]
Detail from Ai Weiwei: Fault Line. Foreground: marble replicas of twisted iron rebar pulled from one of the schools that collapsed in the Sichuan Earthquake (Rebar and Case, 2014). Background: the names of the 5,196 school children killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Photograph by Ian Boyden.
APRIL 1
露 Dew
It’s spring, and the names bloom with water.
APRIL 2
晨 Daybreak
The sun with its plow; the mind with its act.
APRIL 4
緒波 Thread Wave
What did he wear?
Water woven by wind and dyed by light.
APRIL 7
堰平 Peaceful Weir
Our names stretch out like great nets. But peace? We must give up our names to find that.
APRIL 8
清菁 Pure Essence
When her name left your lips, a leek flower opened over dark water. Even her name had a moon.
APRIL 11
萬容 Myriad Container
The urn shattered, ten thousand questions scattered in the stone dust. But each in its own way asked,
are we still one?
APRIL 16
建川 Builder of Rivers
Let this page describe what I saw in the Blue River, the River of the Mountain People.
A black pattern emerged out of emptiness, a name out of the silence from which we were born.
APRIL 17
淲 Flowing Water
The sun-reflecting river— a tiger stripe through black earth.
APRIL 21
雪苓 Snow Fungus
The soil-woven sing within spring mountains:
dark flowers at the edge of ice.
APRIL 22
露 Laid Bare
Exposed, revealed, loved and betrayed. Like nectar laid bare on a windless morning.
APRIL 23
之 Zigzag
An accumulation of steps! Our feet wet with dew.
APRIL 28
登麗 The Ascent of Beauty
She climbs, each step like a quiet drum. Antlers bleach among spring wildflowers.
Read more from Ian Boyden’s “A Forest of Names” in the following links:
“Introduction to ‘A Forest of Names'”
A Forest of Names — January selections
A Forest of Names — February selections
A Forest of Names — March selections
A Forest of Names — May selections
A Forest of Names — June selections
A Forest of Names — July selections
A Forest of Names — August selections
A Forest of Names — September selections
A Forest of Names — October selections
A Forest of Names — November selections
A Forest of Names — December selections
“Fragile as an Urn: An Interview with Ian Boyden”
« A Forest of Names (March) by Ian Boyden | Fault Line: An Introduction to A Forest of Names »