Michael Cherney’s latest series, Within the Gate《其間》, aims to create bilingual art for individuals inhabiting or navigating between cultures. Translating poetry across diverse cultural backgrounds presents distinct challenges, requiring more than literal translation. As a bilingual artist, Cherney’s focus is on preserving the poem's rhythm and essence, adapting certain elements to resonate within a new cultural milieu.

Through this artistic reinterpretation is in calligraphic form, the poetry's beauty transcends linguistic barriers, extending an invitation to a wider, more diverse audience to delve into its depth and resonance. Simultaneously, it provokes contemplation on fostering bridges of mutual understanding and dialogue amidst today's increasingly fragmented cultural landscape.

In this piece, poetry by Gwendolyn MacEwen shares space with a photograph of Medicine Bow Peak in Wyoming. The upper half of the image is lightened to provide a background for the calligraphy.

此地如鏡 turns you inward

And you 成為 a 森林 in a 秘潭;

你心中的暗松 reach downward,

You dream in the green of your time,

你的記憶是一行下沉的松樹.

Explorer, you tell yourself 並非為此而來

Although it is good here, and 青翠;

You had meant to 動 with a kind of largeness,

You had planned a 沉重的 grace, an anguished 夢.

But 你心中的暗松 dip deeper

And 你在 sinking, sinking, sleeper

In an elementary world;

有什麼東西 down there and you want it told.

Original full English poem:

This land like a mirror turns you inward

And you become a forest in a furtive lake;

The dark pines of your mind reach downward,

You dream in the green of your time,

Your memory is a row of sinking pines.

Explorer, you tell yourself this is not what you came for

Although it is good here, and green;

You had meant to move with a kind of largeness,

You had planned a heavy grace, an anguished dream.

But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper

And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper

In an elementary world;

There is something down there and you want it told.