President Xi Recites Part of an American Poem

choi

Brian Spegele, Menace Overcome? China’s Xi Drops American Poetry on US Officials. China Real Time, July 9, 2014
blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/07/09/menace-overcome-chinas-xi-drops-american-poetry-on-u-s-officials/
("The deceptively simple 'Nevertheless' [published in 1944 by Marianne Moore] * * * is hardly a straightforward read even for native English speakers, and China Real Time finds it difficult to imagine a true-to-the-original Chinese translation. * * *While varying interpretations exist Moore’s work, the poem hits on notions of power through perseverance and seems to juxtapose the small with the powerful or profound")

My comment:
(a) China Real Time supplies a link to a full text of the poem, which however misspelled "prickley pear," which should be "prickly pear."

(b) This poem is almost impossible to understand. I could not. (The quotation above is the reporter's (cryptic) interpretation.)
(i)  "apple-seeds - the fruit within the fruit - locked in like counter-curved twin hazel-nuts"

The hazelnut is individual nut within its own shell.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazelnut

The poem means to say a pair of appleseeds are like two hazelnuts.
(ii) Taraxacum kok-saghyz
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum_kok-saghyz
(section 1 Etymology; section 3 Utility)

Though the name is unusual, the species name is binomial nomenclature.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_nomenclature

(c) I search the Web for an hour and found two analyses which have different interpretations.
(i) yclept (name of the critique), Nevertheless. Everything2, Apr 8, 2004.
everything2.com/title/nevertheless
(A) critique: "apple seeds are slightly poisonous"

Are Apple Seeds Poisonous?  About.com, undated
chemistry.about.com/od/healthsafety/f/Do-Apple-Seeds-Contain-Poison.htm
(answer from Anne Marie Helmenstine, PhD, citing a book)
(B) critique: "The carrot, an image of persuasion (the carrot and the stick), is conflated with the mandrake, a magical root tied to fertility, and possessed of a fatal scream when pulled from the ground."

mandrake (plant)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake_(plant)
(C) "Mandrake [perennial; the leaves can grow up to a foot in size and are between 4 - 5 inches wide] originates in the eastern Mediterranean region and is distributed throughout southern Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa."

(ii) Poetry Analysis of Nevertheless. Dec 7, 2011.
www.antiessays.com/free-essays/P ... theless-372176.html

choi

Brian Spegele, 习近平引美国诗歌形容中美关系. 中国实时报, July 10, 2014 (available now, at 9:40 pm EDT, July 9).
cn.wsj.com/gb/20140710/rcu072651.asp

My comment: The translation does not help understand the poem.