Michael Cherney’s latest series, Within the Gate《其間》, aims to create bilingual art for individuals inhabiting or navigating between cultures. Translating poetry across diverse cultural backgrounds presents distinct challenges, requiring more than literal translation. As a bilingual artist, Cherney’s focus is on preserving the poem's rhythm and essence, adapting certain elements to resonate within a new cultural milieu.

Through this artistic reinterpretation is in calligraphic form, the poetry's beauty transcends linguistic barriers, extending an invitation to a wider, more diverse audience to delve into its depth and resonance. Simultaneously, it provokes contemplation on fostering bridges of mutual understanding and dialogue amidst today's increasingly fragmented cultural landscape.

This piece ingeniously merges a snow scene captured in China's Jilin Province with a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, transforming the darkened sky into a canvas. The calligraphy, originally in black ink, is inverted to resemble both the aesthetics of rubbing and the purity of snow while leveraging the visual allure of Chinese characters to enrich the original verse.

Out of the 胸懷 of the air,

Out of the 雲褶 of her 衣裳 shaken,

Over the 林地 brown and bare,

Over the 農田 foresaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the 雪.

Even as our 雲想 take

Suddenly 形 in some 神 expression,

Even as the 憂思 doth make

In the 素容 confession,

The 哀穹 reveals

The 悲 it feels.

This is the 詩 of the air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the 天機 of despair,

久 in its cloudy 胸懷 hoarded,

Now 細語 and revealed

To 林 and field.

Original full English poem:

Out of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

In the white countenance confession,

The troubled sky reveals

The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

Now whispered and revealed

To wood and field.

Literati and Rocks Amidst Verdant Bloom

ASIA WEEK New York