第一次是2009年，诗题为‘迷人中国：九曲黄河之歌’('China Charms: Nine Detours of the Yellow River')；第二次是2012年，题为‘等待’("Waiting')。事不过三，我想，屡屡被提名美国‘小推车’文学奖，反复被选入《加拿大最佳诗选集》，说明我从小缺乏诗才自信是多余的。不过，正是这种自卑一直在驱使我不断挑战自己。
我的自卑是不无道理的：中学时想当诗人，当初下乡投过20多次诗稿，从未收到哪怕是一封标准化的拒绝信。直到今天，我给国内投过几百次稿，除了在两三个境外中文刊物上有诗发表外，和四十年前一样，简直是音讯全无， 唯一的例外是四川诗人张智主编的《世界诗人》曾刊用过我的一首小诗。此外，我在加拿大一年也发表不了几首诗。十分讽刺的是，我居然比大多数‘名’诗人更经常被选入《加拿大最佳诗选集》，疑似有点墙内开花墙外香的味道。
这是原诗，贴在此处存档。如翻译成中文，也许引不起任何中文读者的兴趣吧。
Y
yes,
yes, with your
yellowish skin, you enjoy
meditation
within the shape of
a wishbone, inside the
broken wing
of an
oriental bird strayed, or
in a larger sense, you look
like
the surfacing tail of a pacific whale
who yells low, lower than the Yellow
Emperor
but
whose voice reaches afar
far beyond a whole
continent, to a remote village
near
the yellow river, where you used to sunbathe
rice stems, reed leaves,
cotton skeletons
with a
fork made of a single horn-shaped twig
before you fled the
village, tightly yoked
with
the imbalance between yin and yang
on the other side of this
new world
that is why you have ever
since then been
obsessed
with the letter
[first published in Branch Magazine #10, 2013]
