"Los Angeles in April" - A Poem

Author: Joey Zhou

Translated from original Chinese version

Hummingbirds,

Laughing at passersby

Flying around, chewing on the stamens;

Wildflowers

As free as the wind

Arrogant and lazy decorating the street;

Suddenly

Get a tattoo

The arms of "loyal" exude unpleasant marijuana;

The sun jets out and drowns all promises,

Pasadena showed the hideousness of the old money.

The drunk girl laughed wildly...

The green skirt remembers the emerald green of Acadia and the creeks on the mountain and the clear water in the creeks;

Beverly's designer store murdered singing,

Only the mother’s arms hold cuteness and purity;

Escape into the city or see empty doors,

All pedestrians and vehicles clamored and rushed;

Pause is the truth,

All by the blue sky and white clouds.

The twilight has covered the beach,

Farewell to Huntington, Farewell to the coast.

Who hid in the theater?

Holding flowers

Waiting for you, waiting for me or her?

The screen has evolved into a beast

The beast embossed beauty

The dance had a clumsy performance.

Take a sip of H2O

Swallowed his own lines of poetry

"Los Angeles in April"

Like a bee....

Written in Los Angeles - April 2017

Genhe Ding - The Art of Culture and Contemporary Art

Artist Genhe Ding burns the edges of comic book pages from the Cultural Revolution era in China (1966 -1976) before placing on his canvas to create a mixed media art piece.

Genhe Ding is a professional artist, curator, and founder of the North American Artist Development Foundation. Genhe Ding was born in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China in 1971 and has a an education in fine arts and oil painting.  Ding received his Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Hebei Normal University in China, and studied further at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, Xu Beihong College of Art, Renmin University of China, and the Academy of Fine Arts at Tsinghua University. He received a Master's degree in oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, China, and studied under Professor John Walker of Boston University.  He later opened his own paper mill and art school, while continuing his career as an artist. 

"A Landscape with Comic Strips" - Genhe Ding

While he is trained in traditional oil painting and fine art, his style is contemporary and he likes work with composite materials that reflect his background and culture growing up in China. One of the materials he likes to incorporate are old comic books that were published during the Cultural Revolution and carry many childhood memories. In the history of China, Ding recalls that there were many times when people were forbidden to speak and burn books. The most famous time was the burning of books to bury scholars in the Qin Dynasty. This has inspired him to use fire in his work and is why he burns the edges of the comic book paper before gluing on to the canvas.

Chinese comic books that were published during the Cultural Revolution and were popular medium to entertain and educate people in China.

"Revolution and Counter-Revolution" - Genhe Ding

"Hawk and Pigeon Dance" - Genhe Ding

Another material he likes to use are Chinese couplets, the poems that are printed on red paper and black ink for the Spring Festival and are usually seen on the sides of doors leading to people's homes or hanging as scrolls in an interior. In Chinese poetry, a couplet is a pair of lines that have a certain set of rules they abide by, and appear vertically on each side of the door. The tradition goes back to the Taoist ritual of hanging portraits of two large bearded and bushy eye-browed men on the eve of the Lunar New Year. The posting new couplets every year also has a sense of ritual and the accumulation of a culture. Chinese couplets appeared as early as the Qin Dynasty, over two thousand years ago, and the tradition continues today.  

Chinese couplets and the portraits of two large bearded and bushy eye-browed men that are displayed during the Spring Festival and on the eve of the Lunar New Year.

"The Change of Couplets 4" - Genhe Ding

In regards to his other work, Ding is also an abstract painter who works in both oil and acrylic, and likes to use color and texture in his paintings. His colors tend to be bold and vibrant and he likes to use shapes and textures to express his art, sometimes in a geometric pattern. He also can be very timely with the subject matter he incorporates, such as in the painting "Virus Air" below, where he addresses the COVID-19 pandemic with an abstract of a person breathing and colorful particles of virus floating around in the air.

"Virus Air" - Genhe Ding

"2021 Separating Wall 4" - Genhe Ding

Genhe Ding's artwork has been exhibited throughout China and abroad, with many of his works in art museums and collected by individuals.  His work has been exhibited at the National Art Museum of China, the China Military Museum, the Arts Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Arts Museum of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, the Renmin University Art Museum, the Shangshang Art Museum, the Hebei Art Museum,Taiwan, and in locations in the United States.

"The Narcissus Story" - A Poem

Author: Joey Zhou

Translated from Joey’s Chinese poem

Music: YouTube Link - https://youtu.be/RYzy8RMGaL0

This is a fictional love poem that is meant for mature audiences, and those who understand that most love poems are the result of lust. For example, in the well-known love poem, "When You Are Old", William Butler Yeats writes about his unswerving love for a woman, Ms. Maud Gonne, expressing his love for her beyond her external beauty, and lasting through the years of time. While their relationship didn't last, he wanted her to look ahead into old age, and feel the regret of not choosing him for the rest of her life. You see, "Someone loves your radiant youth, because they are deeply attracted by your beauty, and only one loves the painful wrinkles on your aging face."

Yeats was trapped by love most of his life, and while Maud would not marry him, he did succeed in life as a poet and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. In addition to this love poem I wrote, "The Narcissus Story", I also wrote another love poem called "Excuses" that has a similar tone - "When the excuse of death is life, I am your breath, and when the excuse of life is love, I am you."

How are you, dear Narcissus? !

How to say, riding a great dusty horse galloping gallop...

The lovely daffodils are lingering, go on!

Everything will pass...

He suddenly lost his IQ, but he could see through you and guess his mind.

Dear Narcissus, please continue to linger...!

In silence! There is no extra word, just like his verse:

"Not De Kooning's "Interlacing",

It's not Picasso's "Girl of Yanon";

It's actually painful, the pale yellow paint, and the orange on the palette.

Can you turn those suspicions and doubts into a thicker color?

"Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, purple"

Lying in their own paint tube and sleeping peacefully,

Never disturb my mind;

How are you, dear Narcissus? !

He took up the paintbrush and smeared all the paint on his face,

He buried his face in the canvas again, tearing pain, he saw black and red, there are green mountains and green waters...

An abstract painting is about to be born...!

No, no, no,

What he wants is red with absolute black,

It's like the ornate of longing and longing.

How are you, dear Narcissus? !

No no, never once

Shed a drop of tears,

At least during the rainy season in Los Angeles...

No no, never once

Listened to music like this,

At least one person in the middle of the night...

He listened to Rachel’s Lullaby quietly,

Suppressing sadness in the quiet, graceful and quiet,

He asked the composer, who did you make the music for? The composer said she was a little girl, her name was Rachel.

Oh I got it! It turned out to be so clean and pure.

Still not a single teardrop slipped,

Only a few traces of faint sadness, his season?

Nothing like the past, I shed tears...!

He even laughed,

There is no particular pain in the empty chest.

How are you, dear Narcissus? !

Ride a horse to the lake, like the drowned prince in "Forget-me-not".

Not enough?

Then lay down on the ground like a Ragusos daffodil and die with self-pity...

Finally, you can come back to life with a smile, waiting for the expectation...!

That day, when he stood at the golden section on the stage facing the crowded audience, he completely recited the sad poem of the sad poet:

"When You Are Old"

And freeze the frame next time with the follow-up light! ! !

As if he saw his shadow...not dead.

And hum ha-ha ​​in the polyphony of music..

Come on...

You can finally be calm.

How are you, dear Narcissus? !

On the way home that day, he continued to be handsome...

Take off the tie, shake the dust, kiss goodbye to the cheek of the elder sister photographer, and leave in a hurry...

He thought he could continue to be strong and no longer remember you,

Yes, he wants to completely erase you from the phone...

When the song "Tarzan of the Apes" sounded, how could there be waves of unknown pain in his chest?

"I will be here don’t you cry, I will be here don’t you cry."

The black female driver next to him hummed to the song over and over again...

"I will be here don’t you cry, I will be here don’t you cry."

She sang innocently, and every time she sang a word, a heart-wrenching pain appeared in his chest...

He still tried to smile at her, chatting with her on irrelevant topics,

In this way, the ripples of pain in the chest are alleviated...

It doesn't matter, everything will pass!

She said to him that day, let him not be afraid, and take him through the thorns to move on...

He admitted that he was more sensitive than her to see through all her thoughts,

So, I just waited for the time...

I remember that it was a certain day in March, and it was Pisces' birthday. He decided to remove her from the iPhone, thoroughly.

He thought he was a real man from now on.

Why the damn lyrics floated into his ears again,

Why did there be tingling ripples in his chest again,

It doesn't matter, everything will pass...

Only Rachel’s Lullaby sounded over and over again...!

How are you, dear Narcissus? !

Written on 03/10/2018 in Diamond Bar, California