|
Editor: Yidan Han
Publisher: PoetrySky Press (May 1, 2007)
Language: bilingual (Chinese and English)
Description: xviii, 180p, 14x21 cm, paperback, 8.6 oz
ISBN: 9781424329151
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007921461
Price: $35
US shipping $5. Please use PayPal.
International shipping $10. Please pay through PayPal.
本书定价35美元。邮费另计。
如购书者在美国境内，另加邮费5美元。可通过Paypal购买。请点击：
如购书者在美国境外，另加邮费10美元。请通过Paypal购买。请点击：
购书者有任何疑问，请电邮editor@poetrysky.com
Book Review
Anthology's rich assortment has 'spiritual fragrance'
in Chinese, then English
By Tom Chandler
Source: Providence Journal (December 9, 2007)
Yidan Han is the founder and editor of poetrysky.com, a Web site dedicated to the cultural cross-pollination of American and Chinese poetry. She also edits the bilingual quarterly journal, Poetry Sky. Born in China, she has lived in Providence for five years now, and is the author of two books of her own poems, as well as a Chinese Dictionary of Rhetoric and other academic books on classical Chinese poetry.
Poetrysky.com is the first bilingual poetry Web site in the world to publish both English and Chinese contemporary poetry and their translations. As Yidan says: "Most poets stand at a point of intersection from which they send out their unique voices. New visions, new ways of thinking inspired me while I was editing the anthology. The spiritual fragrance of poetry is timeless."
It was only natural that she would arrive at the idea of publishing The PoetrySky Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry, 2005-2006. Although online literary journals have become quite popular, people still prefer reading actual books rather than sitting in front of a computer.
All of the poets represented in the anthology were born in the 20th century, some as recently as the 1970s. They are all native Chinese, whether from mainland China, Taiwan, England, The U.S., Singapore, or the Philippines. As might be expected, their styles range from lyrical to surreal to experimental.
The Chinese mind strikes me as inherently poetic, even when expressed in the form of conventional prose. By way of example, here are a few sentences from the anthology's foreword: "If time were bubbles, some poets would dance on the bubbles, some may look at the bubbles and tell you their temperature, and still others would destroy the bubbles and disappear with them."
I've picked two poems from the anthology's rich assortment, "A Heart for Home" by Yun He, who has been poetry editor of the World News in the Philippines for 30 years, and "Drinking with an Empty Glass," one of Yidan's own pieces. You can buy a copy of The Poetry Sky Anthology by going to poetrysky.com/bookstore.html. Hands across the water!
A Heart for Home
Why does flight limit itself to looking down
Clouds will melt into rain or dew
Falling, sprinkling, seeping into every inch of earth
The path awaits footsteps not seen for ages, the stone house
Leaving mottles for whom to see?
The cock's crowing hails the morning light; sparrows' chirping weighs branches down
A dog's barking betrays local accent
When kitchen smoke circles twilight
Mountains move back, leaving the sun setting
Thus the person awaiting
Is transfixed, a tree
As if in an embrace
Spreading out, towards heaven, a thousand hands.
— Yun He (translated by Shirley Lua)
Drinking with an Empty Glass
Faraway,
I look at an empty glass.
My fingers
linger around
the edge of the glass
as if lingering around
a long, wandering coastline.
Once there was wine,
there was a claret sea.
Waves surging.
The sea was in front of us.
Graves behind.
Lilies blooming ardently,
a fleeting summer.
Now
The glass is filled with sea water.
Autumn is coming
to an end.
— Yidan Han (translated by Yidan Han)
|
