Xi Chuan excerpts by Norbert Blei

Photo by Sharon AuberleBack in April, right after Notes on the Mosquito was released, Norbert Blei posted excerpts of Xi Chuan’s poetry in my translation on two of his blogs: on Bashō’s Road he posted selections from “Answering Venus” 回答启明星, and on Poetry Dispatch he typed up “Exhortations” 箴言, from Salute 致敬. Above “Answering Venus” and Xi Chuan’s lines,

no one has yet tested the pencil
to see how many words it can write

he posted a large picture of a pencil.