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SKY LANTERNS:
New Poetry from China, Formosa, and Beyond
Edited by Frank Stewart and Fiona Sze-Lorrain
18 illus., 158 pp., US $20
University of Hawai’i Press and Manoa
available in July / August 2012
Purchase link:
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8932-9780824836986.aspx
Sky Lanterns brings together innovative work by authors — primarily poets — in mainland China, Taiwan, the United States, and beyond who are engaged in truth-seeking, resistance, and renewal. Appearing in new translations, many of the works are published alongside the original Chinese text. A number of the poets are women, whose work is relatively unknown to English-language readers. Contributors include Amang, Bai Hua, Bei Dao, Chen Yuhong, Duo Yu, Hai Zi, Lan Lan, Karen An-hwei Lee, Li Shangyin, Ling Yu, Pang Pei, Sun Lei, Arthur Sze, Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Wei An, Woeser, Yang Lian, Yang Zi, Yi Lu, Barbara Yien, Yinni, Yu Xiang, and Zhang Zao.
Sky Lanterns also features images from the Simple Song series by photographer Luo Dan. Traveling with a portable darkroom in remote, mountainous regions of southern China’s Yunnan Province, Luo Dan uses the laborious nineteenth-century, wet plate collodion process of exposure and development. In exquisite detail, he captures a rural life that has remained intact for centuries.
The front cover features images from the Soul Stealer series by photographers Zeng Han and Yang Changhong. Together they photographed Landplay, a traditional opera staging in villages in rural Guizhou, southwest China; and Cosplay, a fantasy experience staged by teenagers against the backdrop of the Yangtze River and the fast-developing city of Chongqing. Landplay depicts battle scenes and ancient spirits from Chinese history. Cosplay depicts imaginary characters, mostly from Japanese manga. Both play types draw on an invented world rich in cultural and spiritual themes.
SKY LANTERNS – List of All Contributors
Chinese, Taiwanese, Tibetan, and Asian-American Poets:
Amang
Bai Hua
Bei Dao
Chen Yuhong
Duo Yu
Hai Zi
Lan Lan
Karen An-hwei Lee
Li Shangyin
Ling Yu
Pang Pei
Sun Lei
Arthur Sze
Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Wei An
Woeser
Yang Lian
Yang Zi
Yi Lu
Barbara Yien
Yinni
Yu Xiang
Zhang Zao
Translators:
Chloe Garcia-Roberts
Brian Holton
Denis Mair
Thomas Moran
Dechen Pemba
Frank Stewart
Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Michelle Yeh
Visual Artists:
Luo Dan
Yang Changhong
Zeng Han
Badio's definition of HIS brand of 'communism' is (on page 90)<br /><br />"By "communist" I understand that which makes the held-in-common prevail over selfish-ness,<br />the collective achievement over private self-interest. While we are at it, we can also say that love<br />is communist in that sense, if one accepts, as I do, that the real subject of love is the
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Ed,<br /><br />Badiou's communism tends to get in the way of his good ideas (like the one you've mentioned). I recall the days of my ol' Chinese Philosophy elective courses in university: there's nothing really to distinguish, in style and substance, between philosophy and poetry. They draw from the same deep cultural well
Agreed.<br /><br />It's just that sometimes I hunger for a poetry that's grounded in 'need'rather than the academic exercise it's become. I'm talking of the Mandelstams, Amichais, Nerudas. But then I'd also say Stevens wrote from a unique 'need' of his own, one for which only his own rich storehouse of talent could supply the materials. There really is no one
NEAT TIMING as<br />I am just into the opening introduction by Burton Watson of his<br />1962<br />EARLY CHINESE LITERATURE<br /><br />like from 1100 B.C. until about 100 A.D.<br />(he doesn't include those earliest fragments that were written on bone)<br />..just finished Alain Badiou's new little book: In Praise of love<br />which opened up for me a way or three to "go" back/
Not really a review, Conrad. More of a press release! But I plan to review the anthology down the road. The issue of staying alive—calls for a different level of poetics, yes. Not a requirement, of course. Otherwise we'd have to throw out poets like Stevens, which I can't do. Would real poets be poets if they weren't <i>somehow</i> in extremis?
Excellent review, Joseph.<br /><br />Given the recent Nobel award winners from China it's an anthology I should like to read. You can bet in China they're "keeping it real", too concerned with the pesky business of staying alive to play with "technics" (as Corman would say). My type of poetics.