American poet Paul Nelson, who interviewed Xi Chuan for SPLAB, has published his poem “Black Dragon Year“–“After Xi Chuan’s Somebody [某人] and Li Bo Questions Answered.” Paul also wrote to me that touring Seattle Xi Chuan said “the dragons, festooning the lampposts in the International District (Chinatown) looked ‘like lizards.'”
Click here to listen to Paul read.
Under the title “American Poetry Culture & Chinese Culture,” Seattle-based cultural figure Paul Nelson (who earlier interviewed Xi Chuan) has a write-up of Xi Chuan’s reactions to Seattle & American poetry, and his recent reading at the Seattle Central Library with Paul Manfredi. I particularly liked Nelson’s description of the following:
The Q & A session after the reading was remarkable due to Xi Chuan’s thoughts about contemporary Chinese culture, saying that tourists want to visit the “old China”, that it has been part of Chinese culture for a long time to bulldoze most of the buildings of previous dynasties and that there is a symmetry issue with adding cars and roads, but leaving pre-auto landscapes. He said modern American cities like New York, Chicago and Seattle had been the model for China’s building spree, but now it is Paris and London. He kept saying “it’s complicated” a negative capability reflected in his poetry, a quality I appreciate. He also answered a question about memorizing old poetry, but gave a long chunk of an old poem that, even in the Chinese, did not seem easy to memorize and recite. He knows his stuff and related well to the older Chinese man who asked the question. The library event was after a long tour of Seattle that I took him on. He was able to recognize the Lenin statue from the back and was honored to see the graves of Bruce Lee and Denise Levertov.
Follow the link for the rest of the write-up and more pictures of Xi Chuan in Seattle.
Two weeks ago I linked to part one of Paul Nelson’s SPLAB interview with Xi Chuan. Paul has recently uploaded part two, which continues to show the depth and breadth of Xi Chuan.Whereas part one spent more time on Xi Chuan’s personal history, however, in part two he discusses details from his poems “Exhortations” 箴言, “A Personal Paradise” 个人的天堂, “Ill Fortunes” 厄运 (which he reads, in English), and “Notes on the Mosquito” 蚊子志, as well as the developments in Chinese poetry since the era of the “Misty Poets” 朦胧诗人 in the ’80s. Add to this both Xi Chuan’s take on the politics of the history of Chinese and American interaction and Paul’s “American Sentence,” “A bureaucrat is someone great finding reasons why they can’t help you,” and this is clearly an interview worth listening to. Here’s Paul’s write-up:
Xi Chuan, peN
While in China for the 3rd Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival this past August, I met one of the most renowned younger Chinese poets, Xi Chuan. He has a book coming out next year entitled Notes on the Mosquito, published in translation by New Directions. In Seattle recently to celebrate the release of an anthology of contemporary poetry from China, Push Open the Window (Copper Canyon Press) he talked about the opening in Chinese poetry after the Cultural Revolution. SPLAB Presents for the week of October 17, 2011. Part one of the interview. Part two is here.
SPLAB Presents airs Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. on KBCS.FM, 91.3, or you can listen to the interview here.
The inimitable Paul Nelson met Xi Chuan when they both attended the Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival 青海湖国际诗歌节 last August. After Xi Chuan’s Copper Canyon reading in Seattle, Paul met with Xi Chuan for an interview, part one of which has just been posted on splab.org. In English, the interview shows Xi Chuan at all his depth and breadth, ranging from the importance of Western poetries to Chinese literature and the place of Ezra Pound to his difficulties in the face of the personal and social upheavals he of 1989; it also includes a bit of a reading of my translation of Xi Chuan’s prose poem “Beast” 巨兽. Here’s Paul’s write-up.
Xi Chuan, peN
While in China for the 3rd Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival this past August, I met one of the most renowned younger Chinese poets, Xi Chuan. He has a book coming out next year entitled Notes on the Mosquito, published in translation by New Directions. In Seattle recently to celebrate the release of an anthology of contemporary poetry from China, Push Open the Window (Copper Canyon Press) he talked about the opening in Chinese poetry after the Cultural Revolution. SPLAB Presents for the week of October 17, 2011.
SPLAB Presents airs Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. on KBCS.FM, 91.3, or you can listen to the interview here.