I swallowed a hot obsidian

This collection of poems by the young poet Liang Xinyuan, compiled between 2019 and 2022, is divided into five sections: "The Wind Teases Me Meaninglessly," "I Swallowed a Hot Obsidian," "Going Further Will Drown," "Some Bright Reasons," and "Useless Stone." Through self-written reflections on life, Liang attempts to find answers to the state of life and death through explorations of the ecological body and emotional desires.

They are naturally beautiful
And I am just a fake

"I Swallowed a Hot Obsidian" is a long, silent murmur. Its almost harmonious voice echoes endlessly like a cold spring, rising and falling here and there, repeatedly challenging the reader's patience. Xin Yuan dedicates her lyricism to the everyday, the dim light, and the subtle objects, whether it's her own city, the fields, the ruins, an island covered in mercury, or even the vast, uninhabited land. She brazenly summons all things beyond her own locale, arrogantly attempting to locate the visible and invisible in the universe within every corner of the poetic nouns, ultimately forming a paradoxical chorus of lyricism—the aesthetic of "indifference/delusion," where lyricism is everywhere. Yet, two become one, one is also two, and two is still one—and what she reflects upon is not the obsidian she has long swallowed, but the hot "me" swallowed by the obsidian.
──Recommended by Malaysian Chinese poet Zheng Tianjing

Liang Xinyuan

Born in 1999, he has won the Huazong New Talent Literary Award, the Hong Kong Youth Literature Award, the Taiwan X19 Global Chinese Poetry Award, and the Youchuan Short Poetry Award. He is the editor of the Malaysian Chinese audio poetry magazine "Koukou" and was formerly the editor of "Malaysian Chinese Literature". His works have appeared in newspapers and magazines both domestically and internationally.

Overture or BGM:
A Sugarless Performance, a Girl Meets with a Bitter Core — Notes from "I Swallowed a Hot Obsidian" / Chen Tou Tou (Malaysian Chinese Poet)

Sinfonia: The wind teases meaninglessly
• The wind teases meaninglessly
• Just a season
• Clumsy
• After the Rain
• Clitoria
• Silence pervades the mountains
• I'm just not broad enough for people
• I would like to describe you as a person of wood nature.
• Green's Name
• Camping in August

Sarabande: I swallowed a hot obsidian
• I swallowed a hot obsidian
• Shy to open the door, now, then
• A water stain on the ceiling of the second toilet on the right
• Aphrodite's Bath
• Light a cigarette
• A sparrow lives inside me
• Wet pain
• The midnight after the typhoon
• May is coming to an end

Sicilienne: If we go any further we'll drown.
• If you go any further you will drown
• There are more ways to end silence than just speaking
• On track
• Buddha's name
• Meet as if nothing happened
• October Spores
• hope
• Tattoos
• Hours and minutes
• Deca
• Karpassa
• Lesions
• Body husband
• A person can be bored to death

Passepied: Some bright reasons
• Some bright reasons
• Hide and Seek
• like
• Tone of voice
• Backlight like the sea
• Some, some
• Boring afternoon
• Wandering
• Sleeping on the Border
• Portraits
• Confessions from the Balcony
• Unable to survive alone
• Guitar Runaway

Encore: Useless Stone
• A blueprint for a house
• Silver shadow before midnight
• A pool of white blood on the ground
• A scarred wheat plant sleeping in the field
• Useless Stone

postscript