Yan Yunzhen, MA student, Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature, National Taiwan University

1001 Nights

Written and Translated by Fei Ma (William Marr)

Hear a story, kill a wife

kill a wife, hear a story

this sort of Arabian Nights’ fairy tale

I actually took as the gospel truth

when I was little

Sooner or later one grows up

Recite some scripture, kill some infidels

kill some infidels, recite some scripture

this sort of Arabian Nights’ fairy tale

only now do I take

as the gospel truth

Sooner or later one grows up

The Chinese translation of the world classic One Thousand and One Nights is one of Taiwan’s most popular children’s books, the stories an indispensable part of the growth experiences of countless Taiwanese children. William Marr’s eponymously titled 1985 poem is derived from the Arabian story: According to legend, there was a king who each day married a new wife; at night he would listen to his bride tell stories, and then kill her at daybreak.But then he married a woman named Scheherazade,a consummate storyteller. Every night she she’d entertain the king with a new tale, approaching the climax just as the sun was rising. Eager to know how the story ended, the king would spare heruntil the next night. This went on for a thousand and one nights. At last, enamored of the woman, the king granted her a full reprieve, and the couple lived happily ever after.Upon hearing the story, many boys and girls believe it’s real, for there are no lies in a child’s world.But when children face the disappointments and frustrations inherent in the growth process, they realize that fairy tales are only childhood memories. And as adults caught up in the daily grind, they don’t believe their own stories will have a happy ending. In their hearts, however, there’s still a shred of happy relief: Fortunately, the cruel king didn’t really exist, and neither do countless other storybook villains.

Nevertheless, the poem asks readers: “Isn’t it real?” In the opening stanza, Marr implies that everyone has had this kind of experience: After growing upwe chuckle at our childhood naivety – how could we have actually believed that that silly “hear a story, kill a wife” tale was real?Who knew that after growing up we’d be faced with another conundrum: The real world is full of violence and cruelty far worse than that depicted in the story. Ideally, religion should be a force for love in the world; historically, however, wars of religion have broken out time and again: Recite some scripture, kill some infidels / kill some infidels, recite some scripture.This seems like something out of One Thousand and One Nights, but as adults we firmly believe it: The pain of growing upreveals to us the limitless darkness in the world. Perhaps maturity and understanding are growth’s rewards, but suffering is the price we pay.

A poem of only twenty lines, 1001 Nights brims with interest,the work’s strong contrasts creating dramatic tension.“Sooner or later one grows up” marks the boundary between a child’s and an adult’s understanding of the world, the growth experience an indelible inscription carved in readers’ hearts.

Dai Huaxuan, Assistant Professor, Department of Taiwanese Literature, Aletheia University

Fei Ma (1936) is the penname of Ma Weiyi (William Marr), born in Taipei to a family from China’s Guangdong province. Foreseeing rising tensions between China and Japan, the writer’s father relocated the family to the Guangdong countryside when the writer was still an infant, not returning to Taiwan until 1947. Marr began his literary life while studying mechanics at Taipei Vocational College (today’s National Taipei University of Technology), writing poetry as “Ma Dan.” With classmates he cofounded Dawn Light, a literary monthly, and joined the school choir, receiving musical instruction.After university graduation he worked at a sugar refinery in Taiwan’s Pingdong area. He left to study in the U.S. in 1961, earning a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Marquette University, and a doctoratein nuclear engineering from Wesleyan University. In 1969 he took a position at Chicago’s Argonne National Laboratory, researching nuclear power. During this time he translated nearly a thousand British and American modernist poems for the Li Poetry Bimonthly. In 1993 he was elected as president of the Illinois State Poets Association, and in 2005 the America Booksellers Newsletter named him “a treasured Chicago poet.” Now retired, Marr is also a painter and sculptor whose works are widely exhibited.

Because of his engineering background, Marr observes the world and understands the life of the universe from a different perspective. Concise in language and form, rational and unsentimental, his work is coolly poetic; moreover, his humor and irony express a deep concern for social realities. His website “The Art World of William Marr”(wmarr9.home.comcast.net/bmz.htm) features poetry, translations, criticism, manuscripts, a blog, and video clips of the poet reading his work.

Marr’s works have appeared in over a hundred collections, and have been translated into English, German, Japanese, Malay, Hebrew, Spanish, Romanian, and Slavic languages. His published works include the Chinese poetry collections In the Windy City (1975), White Horse Collection (1984), The Clop of Horses’ Hooves (1986), Road (1986), Fly, Spirit! (1992), and Nothing’s Inconclusive (2000); English poetry collections Autumn Window (1995) and Between Heaven and Earth (2010); the essay collections The Worldly Heart Moves (2005) and Chicago: City of Broad Shoulders (2014); and I Won’t Compose an Elegy for a Dead Rat (2011), a collection of both poetry and essays. He has received the Wu Chuo-liu Literary Award, The Li Poetry Translation Award (1981), The Li Poetry Creativity Award (1984) the Illinois State Poets’ Association Poetry Competition Award (1993), and the Chicago Poet and Sponsor Poetry Prize (1993).