The Defiant Heart

One hundred poems. One hundred days. One defiant heart. In the spring and early summer of 1997, the Chinese poet Geye wrote a poem almost every day for three months-a spiritual marathon that produced this bilingual collection, The Defiant Heart. From declarations of freedom to love songs of unrequited longing, from sketches of village life to meditations on silence and emptiness, these poems trace the arc of a soul awakened. Geye is not a poet of the academy or the literary salon. He is a wanderer, a mechanic by training, a former factory worker who "discovered the original mind" and chose to live in the countryside, writing not for fame but for truth. His voice is both ancient and immediate-rooted in the Chinese poetic tradition yet fiercely contemporary, blending Zen stillness with raw passion. This dual-language edition (Chinese-English) invites readers into a world where: A black dog dragging its chain becomes a symbol of freedom and captivity. A love without hope is affirmed as the very meaning of existence. Wheat and rapeseed sing their harvest songs under the summer sun. Silence speaks louder than any word. For lovers of poetry, for seekers of spiritual depth, for anyone who has ever felt the weight of the world and still chosen to sing-this book is a companion. "We are the invulnerable ones, masters of the age, lords of destiny." So begins the journey. Where it ends is up to you.
This collection is a manuscript that captures a Chinese poet's inner journey during the spring and early summer of 1997. One hundred poems, dated from March 6 to May 27: a poetic marathon lasting nearly three months, a sustained dialogue with time, fate, and the self.

As editor and translator, we felt an urgency and completeness while working with this manuscript. This is not a selection refined over years, but a "live recording" - the poet, in that particular year and season, wrote nearly daily, pouring the many faces of life onto the page. Such intensity is itself a declaration.

The Defiant Heart
The title comes from the first section: "The Defiant Heart" . This defiance is not mere rebellion, but something deeper - a refusal of fate, a questioning of power, a resistance against forces that would diminish the human spirit. The poet declares: "We are the invulnerable ones, masters of the age, lords of destiny." This is not a claim of victory, but of courage to resist.

Throughout the collection, the defiant heart appears in many forms: a black dog dragging its chain, caught between freedom and captivity; a soul invaded by nightmare yet still singing; a heart choosing to love despite disappointment. This defiance is not recklessness, but a sober choice - to believe after seeing illusion, to sing after knowing pain.





The Work of Poetry
While editing this collection, we kept returning to one question: what is the work of poetry? The poet answers in A Bundle of Everyday Ditties "I Know What Poetry Is: When life is about to pour forth its song, the shadows of the human world come to issue commands, and I splash hot blood to force them to reveal their true form." Poetry is a revealing - of truths obscured by routine, of freedoms suppressed by power, of love distorted by desire.

But this is not all. Poetry is also a preserving - of moments that would otherwise fade: a child teaching you the names of plants, the fragrance of roadside roses, a father's return after rain. These moments seem small, yet they form the texture of life. With his "defiant heart," the poet turns these moments into words, making them enduring.

As editor and translator, we were deeply moved - not because these poems are flawless, but because they are honest. They record the state of a person at a particular time: conflicted, hesitant, pained, joyful, angry, peaceful. They offer no easy answers, but invite readers to face questions together.