Brush Made From Baby Wolf Hair, by Yuan Changming

Brush Made from Baby Wolf Hair

This is a traditional Chinese pen, an artifact
Combining a wolf’s wildness with a baby’s
Innocence. It is soft but strong enough to 
Write dark history in rice fields, or draw
Black pictures on ricepaper. All in black
And white. Unlike the feather from a swan
That can fly up from an alphabetic epic

Yes, it is a colourless feeling the painter
Or the writer gets, from his inky strokes

Yuan Changming
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Yuan Changming, nine-time Pushcart and two-time Best of the Net nominee, published monographs on translation before moving out of China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver; credits include seven chapbooks (including Dark Phantasms [2017]), Best of the Best Canadian Poetry: 10th Anniv. Ed., BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1319 across 40 countries.