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Poetry Month 2016: Bei Dao
Mission The priest gets lost in prayer an air shaft leads to another era: escapees climb over the wall panting words evoke the author’s heart trouble breathe deep, deeper grab the locust tree roots that debate the north wind summer has arrived the treetop is an informer murmurs are a reddish sleep stung by a swarm of bees no, a storm readers one by one clamber onto the shore [From The Rose of Time: New and Selected Poems, translated by Eliot Weinberger and Iona Man-Cheong] ~ From the publisher’s Web site: The Rose of Time: New & Selected Poems presents a glowing selection…Read More
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A Taste for Apocalypse
I had all kinds of reasons for wanting to like this book. First, my daughter gave it to me for Christmas; she spent enough years in the book business to know what might appeal to me. And she was right: I had read a review that made the book sound right up my alley—something dark, apocalyptic, Poe-ish. (I love Poe.) So I embraced the reading of it with relish. I have to say, though, that the novel disappointed me. László Krasznahorkai‘s Satantango is a dystopian amorality play.Read More