Last October I posted about Jade Ladder, a new anthology of contemporary Chinese poetry forthcoming in the UK, edited by Yang Lian 杨炼 and William Herbert (with Brian Holton and Qin Xiaoyu 秦晓宇 as associate editors). Recently I’ve been corresponding with Bloodaxe Press about permissions, and while I haven’t seen the final table of contents, I can say that my translations of Xi Chuan’s “Exercises in Thought” 思想练习 and “Commandments” 戒律 are slated to be included. Nice choices!
Tag Archives: Qin Xiaoyu
Chinese Names in Push Open the Window
When I first wrote about the Copper Canyon anthology Push Open the Window, I said, “My only quibble with the book so far is that, while everything is printed with Chinese and English en face, for some reason the Chinese characters of none of the poets’ names made it into the book.” Co-translation editor Sylvia Lin has worked to address this, writing in a recent post to the Modern Chinese Literature & Culture email list:
List members may be interested in a new bilingual anthology of contemporary Chinese poetry, Push Open the Window, the third volume in a larger project of bilingual anthologies of contemporary poetry funded by the NEA. The poems were selected by the Chinese editor, Qingping Wang, with Sylvia Li-chun Lin and Howard Goldblatt as translation editors.
Despite our objections, the publisher, Copper Canyon Press, chose not to include the poets’ names in Chinese. We are making them available here; feel free to share the list with other users of the anthology.
Shi Zhi 食指
Mang Ke 芒克
Shu Ting 舒婷
Yu Jian 于坚
Zhai Yongming 翟永明
Wang Xiaoni 王小妮
Sun Wenbo 孙文波
Gu Cheng 顾城
Bai Hua 柏桦
Zhang Shuguang 张曙光
Wang Jiaxin 王家新
Song Lin 宋琳
Xiao Kaiyu 肖开愚
Han Dong 韩东
Chen Dongdong 陈东东
Zhang Zao 张枣
Qing Ping 清平
Sen Zi 森子
Huang Canran 黄灿然
Xi Chuan 西川
Huang Fan 黄梵
Cai Tianxin 蔡天新
Zang Di 臧棣
Hai Zi 海子
Ye Hui 叶辉
Ma Yongbo 马永波
Shu Cai 树才
Yi Sha 伊沙
Yu Nu 余怒
Ge Mai 戈麦
Lan Lan 蓝蓝
Xi Du 西渡
Yang Jian 杨键
Sang Ke 桑克
Chen Xianfa 陈先发
Lin Mu 林木
Zhou Zan 周瓒
Zhu Zhu 朱朱
Jiang Tao 姜涛
Yan Wo 燕窝
Jiang Hao 蒋浩
Ma Hua 马骅
Han Bo 韩博
Leng Shuang 冷霜
Duo Yu 朵渔
Hu Xudong 胡续冬
Qin Xiaoyu 秦晓宇
Shen Muqin 沈木槿*
Wang Ao 王敖
* The book prints this name as Shen Mujin; the character can be pronounced either jǐn or qín.
Jade Ladder: Contemporary Chinese Poetry
I just received the press release for another anthology contemporary Chinese poetry, this one edited by Yang Lian 杨炼 and William Herbert (with Brian Holton and Qin Xiaoyu 秦晓宇 as associate editors) under the title Jade Ladder. It promises to be an exciting collection, and will feature my translations of some of Xi Chuan’s work as well. Click on the image below for more information:
The poetry world needs to have a long discussion about anthologies, especially all the anthologies of contemporary Chinese poetry that have been published recently or which are forthcoming. Compiling an anthology is as complicated as translation, and has similar questions—how do we represent what we’re representing, and to whom? What do we sacrifice, and for what gain? Add to that the fact that too often anthologies of Chinese poetry in English have stood in the way of single-authored collections being published (though this is changing), and things get quite complicated. Nevertheless, since Jade Ladder is published by the UK press Bloodaxe, and aims to showcase “the diversity of Chinese poetry as it renegotiates its relationship with Western modernist and postmodernist poetry, and re-engages with its Classical heritage,” as well as including “publication in exile,” it promises to be a fine counterpoint and complement to the US government-funded Push Open the Window.