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A FOREST OF NAMES
A FOREST OF NAMES
108 Meditations
IAN BOYDEN
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT
Wesleyan Poetry
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
© 2020 Ian Boyden
All rights reserved
Manufactured in Canada
Typeset in Bembo, Futura, Songti, and Helvetica
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Boyden, Ian H., author.
Title: A forest of names : 108 meditations / Ian Boyden.
Description: Middletown : Wesleyan University Press, 2020. | Series: Wesleyan poetry | Includes index. | Summary: “Poems meditating on the names of children lost in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake” —Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020003827 (print) | LCCN 2020003828 (ebook) | ISBN 9780819579942 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780819579959 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780819579966 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Wenchuan Earthquake, China, 2008—Poetry. | LCGFT: Poetry.
Classification: LCC PS3602.O9343 F67 2020 (print) | LCC PS3602.O9343 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020003827
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020003828
5 4 3 2 1
Frontispiece and title page images:
All of the names of schoolchildren gathered from “Names of the Student Earthquake Victims Found by the Citizens’ Investigation” (2008–2011). Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studios.
“Front cover illustration: Marble replica of twisted iron rebar pulled from one of the collapsed schools inWenchuan county, Sichuan. Ai Weiwei, “Rebar and Case” (2014). Photograph by Ian Boyden.” Maintain spacing, this is poetry.
for Gavia Lachen
Contents
| Prologue | 1 |
| 108 poems meditating on | |
| the names of children lost | |
| in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake | 5 |
| Epilogue | 115 |
| Acknowledgments | 117 |
| Index | 121 |
Beichuan County, Sichuan, May 2008. Photograph by Ai Weiwei.
Image courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studios.
Prologue
AT 2:28 ON MAY 12, 2008, an 8.0 earthquake leveled western Sichuan province in China, displacing millions of people and killing tens of thousands of others. It was one of the deadliest earthquakes in human history. It became clear that a disproportionate number of schoolchildren were killed when their government-built schools collapsed on them. To conceal the corruption behind the faulty construction, the government prevented parents and citizens from finding out who died, how many, and why—often using brutal tactics. Despite this, artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei created a team called Citizens’ Investigation, which gathered and published the names of the children. In total, this list includes 5,196 names, their age, gender, date of birth, and which school they attended.
WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleased with the
sound of my own name? repeating it over and over,
I cannot tell why it affects me so much, when I hear
it from women’s voices, and from men’s voices,
or from my own voice,
I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.
To you, your name also,
Did you think there was nothing but two or three
pronunciations in the sound of your name?
—Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass,” 1860–61
Those children have parents, dreams, and they
could smile, they had a name that belonged to
them. That name will belong to them three years
from now, five years, eighteen or nineteen years
later; it is everything about them which may be
remembered, it is everything that might be evoked.
—Ai Weiwei, March 20, 2009
MAY 13
Zhèngxī
正犧
First Glimmer of Dawn
Even the moon was shaken.
How the dust settled so quickly.
The people looked to where
the sun should rise, waited
as if it were an offering.
They held the place
where they thought their heart should be
though there was no proper place.
Stones, parts of buildings,
papers scattered like leaves.
It must be winter,
but the trees say it is late spring.
The horizon of her name,
dark blue but fading.
MAY 20
Péi
培
Banked with Earth
Where continuity consists of brokenness,
we plant the seeds of forget-me-nots.
MAY 21
Yuèxīn
月新