American Centre
The Poem
June
by Shi Tao
My whole life
Will never get past “June”
June, when my heart died
When my poetry died
When my lover
Died in romance’s pool of blood
June, the scorching sun burns open my skin
Revealing the true nature of my wound
June, the fish swims out of the blood-red sea
Toward another place to hibernate
June, the earth shifts, the rivers fall silent
Piled up letters unable to be delivered to the dead
Listen to the poem
Recited by Billy Collins.
Billy Collins is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Questions About Angels, a winner of the National Poetry Series; The Art of Drowning; Picnic, Lightning; Sailing Alone Around the Room; Nine Horses; and, most recently, The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems. He is the editor of Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, published by Random House in 2003, as well as 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day. His poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, The American Scholar, Harper’s, and The Atlantic Monthly. Collins is a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Lehman College of the City University of New York. He was appointed United States Poet Laureate for 2001-2003 and served as New York State Poet Laureate 2004-2006. Collins is a Vice President of PEN American Center.
Translated to English from Chinese by Chip Rolley, Sydney PEN.
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