Tibet's True Heart
BY Woeser
TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE
BY A.E. Clark
(Ragged Banner Press, 2008)

When did I start walking out of this “ivory tower”? Travel experiences in vast Tibet changed me gradually. During these travels, I slowly became intimate with Buddhism, and realized clearly how my inner world enriched itself day by day. Amdo, Ü-Tsang, Kham… I visited many places. Both as a voyager, and as a pilgrim — because in my heart, I saw the vast snowy land as a gigantic monastery of nature! Of course this was my earliest motivation for the journey. As I walked further in the vast snowy land, and paused longer, those literary sentiments were gradually replaced by a sense of history and a vocation. In other words, I, who used to only see my hometown from an aesthetics point of view, gradually began to see people and events on this land with an eye from history and reality.

In “My Poetry Aesthetics” published in The Whiteness of the Snowland, I once wrote:

Living in a Tibet that has lived through many changes, basking in her sunlight that is especially brilliant in the midst of unfathomable transformations, I slowly feel and realize the benevolence and wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism, slowly see and hear the glory and suffering in Tibetan history and reality… all these profer me a mission: to tell the world about the secret of Tibet.

Clearly, “December,” “Panchen Lama” and “Secret Tibet” are three political poems about Tibet. More recently, you also wrote “The Fear in Lhasa” and “Only This Useless Poem, Dedicated to Lobsang Tsepak.”How much does the political inform your poetry and has this changed since you first started writing? Is it something you are even aware of when you think about what to write?

I believe “December” is a turning point to me. Before this poem, my poetry was creation from the Ivory Tower. As I said, at that time I was evolving.

In my book of prose, Notes on Tibet, I wrote, “… but being part of the Tibetans, my spine feels the oppression of a rock-like silhouette of the vast yet suffering Tibet. Between ‘glory’ and ‘helpless,’ I can only choose one of them, it’s an ‘either-or’ case! And what I view as glory, is not merely the ‘glory’ of a poet, but the glory of conscience.”

A man of conscience needs to face reality and history. Yet reality and history are very harsh. As a poet, I could feel at every instant in Tibet the tension between reality and history. In the end this tension shattered the ivory tower that sheltered me. Thus, on that day in December 1995, I couldn’t help but wriote “December” on the spot. (It is interesting that this poem was subsequently featured in several official publications, as if no one had understood):

Actually, after writing this poem, my poetry started to touch on reality and history, and began to engage in a narrative style. In my essay, I wrote: “I finally see clear the direction of my writing thereafter, which is to be a witness, to see, to discover, to reveal, and to spread the secret — the shocking, touching yet impersonal secret. Let me also tell stories. Let me use the most commonly seen language — a language that can yet renew definitions, purify and even make new discoveries — to tell stories: the story of Tibet.”