Article XII: Autonomy

By | 8 June 2020

The autumn shall be a desert of the hard road,
which shall enjoy a high degree of brightness and floating clouds directly under the
white sun.

The white sun shall be the bright blanket of heaven,
which shall enjoy a high degree of sheltering the people spreading
directly over the hard road.

The hard road shall be an immensity of people,
which shall enjoy a high degree of perching and nesting
directly under umbrellas.

The people shall be a sword of ten thousand umbrellas,
which shall enjoy a high degree of brightness and billowing wind
directly under heaven.


This poem remixes Article XII of Hong Kong’s Basic Law with imagery from Li Bai’s “Ancient Air (39”) / “古风 (39)”

Article XII text:
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be a local administrative region of the People’s Republic of China, which shall enjoy a high degree of autonomy and come directly under the Central People’s Government.

 


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Collier Nogues’s poetry collections are The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground (Drunken Boat, 2015) and On the Other Side, Blue (Four Way, 2011). Her work has been supported by fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and Lingnan University. She teaches creative writing in the Chinese University of Hong Kong's MA Program in Literary Studies, and is a PhD Fellow at the University of Hong Kong, where she studies 21st century anti-war poetry.

More by Collier Nogues on Cordite Poetry Review →

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