Shelly Bryant divides her year between Shanghai and Singapore, working as a poet, writer, and translator. She is the author of eight volumes of poetry (Alban Lake and Math Paper Press), a pair of travel guides for the cities of Suzhou and Shanghai (Urbanatomy), and a book on classical Chinese gardens (Hong Kong University Press). She has translated work from the Chinese for Penguin Books, Epigram Publishing, the National Library Board in Singapore, Giramondo Books, and Rinchen Books. Shelly’s poetry has appeared in journals, magazines, and websites around the world, as well as in several art exhibitions. Her translation of Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012, and her translation of You Jin’s In Time, Out of Place was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2016.  You can visit her website at shellybryant.com.

Canal (1)

2017 April 27, Shanghai 
we’ve become acquaintances
this past fortnight
of the sort I call
nodding neighbours
I’ve mentioned to some friends
that first day, when I startled you
on the staircase by the canal
I confess
I stared
you are not, after all
at all the sort usually seen
in my xiaoqu
I confess
I snapped
those photos less furtively
than I’d have liked
– and I knew you weren’t pleased by it
but I did not mean to incite
your flight from the rail
and out over the water’s face
I’ve taken to calling you
my bird, to the amusement of friends who hear
it first as the Chinese euphemism
and wonder what I’m not telling
in fact
I’d like it
if we could be friends
I’ll even try to learn your name
where you’re from, what you like
(beyond the seafood I saw you catch
yesterday at dawn)
I’ll learn
to give you your privacy
and perhaps one day we may
know how to interpret one another’s stares
for their friendly intent
since, after all, we seem
to have both settled in quite well
~

At Home (1)

2017 May 14, Shanghai
a pair outside my window
nesting
as it seems so many do
instinctively
decades spent
accumulating and assembling
laying eggs
and hatching them
then pouring every resource
into feeding the younglings
and sending them out
to do it all over again
while my inclinations lead
to a washing machine’s hum
as blankets wash
keys clicking in the purchase
of tickets
as the south calls
where the remnants of a nest
await the touch-ups
that will keep it home
until the next cycle starts
and I set out
to do it all over again