{"id":1362,"date":"2012-11-01T10:28:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T02:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2012-11-10T12:52:23","modified_gmt":"2012-11-10T04:52:23","slug":"chris-lupke-on-xi-chuan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1362","title":{"rendered":"Chris Lupke on Xi Chuan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Book Review Seminar<\/a> with Xi Chuan features Chris Lupke’s review of my translations, Notes on the Mosquito<\/em><\/a>. Because it’s still forthcoming in print, I can’t reproduce the entire review, but here’s an excerpt of Lupke’s intricate and sensitive take on Xi Chuan’s poetry and its importance in China and the world:<\/p>\n

The density of his poetry aside, the other trial facing me and any reader at this time is that we have no serviceable nomenclature for what Xi Chuan is doing, particularly his work of the past ten years or so. He is engaged in an unprecedented project to recast literary expression in contemporary China. And we do not know, cannot now know, whether the results of his project eventually will be the idiosyncratic work of one man, or whether he is setting a path, one possible path, for other poets to follow. Xi Chuan exists at a special time in Chinese literary history when form has finally matured in modern Chinese poetry, when the anxiety of influence can be tempered by several generations of earlier modern poets who bore the major brunt of being compared with the illustrious tradition of classical Chinese poetry and when experiments with Western poetic structures have by and large been cast aside. The successes of free verse poets from Taiwan such as Yang Mu, Yu Guangzhong, Wai-lim Yip (Cantonese, but educated in Taiwan), and others have established a solid corpus in the vernacular mode. Obscure poets from China have safely neutralized the once suffocating omnipresence of Maospeak. Through the use of internal rhymes, rhythmic repetition, alliteration and assonance, Xi Chuan is able to forge his work in an environment in which the so-called avant-garde (which to date has not been adequately defined in China) is the norm. Liberated from the twin strictures of classical Chinese and Western prosody, Xi Chuan has become a successful bricoleur, a world poet who interacts with the tradition, engages literary giants of China\u2019s past within his work, and also establishes a dialogue with Western greats such as Homer, Petrarch, Baudelaire, Rilke, Pound, Gary Snyder, and others. His work is the product of a creative dialectics that violates Hu Shi\u2019s admonition to eschew literary allusion while embracing his demand to articulate things in the vernacular. The conflicts that Xi Chuan bespeaks in his poetry are not those of a clash of civilizations, of traditional and modernity or East and West. Rather, they are internal conflicts, conflicts of the soul. His work is completely personal and untranslatable to others, not just linguistically but emotionally. But at the same time, his problems are genuine and are no different than those that give pain to each of us: the death of friends and family, frustration over failure, difficulty communicating to others, weakness and ineffectuality, humiliation, fear, lust, and limitation. \u201cThe one with the greatest vision is blind\u201d \u6700\u5177\u89c6\u89c9\u529f\u592b\u7684\u4eba\u7adf\u7136\u662f\u4e2a\u778e\u5b50, he flatly observers, \u201cif Homer wasn\u2019t blind, then whoever created Homer must have been\u201d \u5982\u679c\u8377\u9a6c\u4e0d\u662f\u778e\u5b50\uff0c\u90a3\u521b\u4f5c\u4e86\u8377\u9a6c\u7684\u4eba\u5fc5\u662f\u778e\u5b50. And he concludes at the end of the same poem: \u201cNietzsche the last son of Dionysus, never touching a drop, still went crazy in Weimar\u201d \u5c3c\u91c7\u9152\u795e\u7684\u6700\u540e\u4e00\u4e2a\u513f\u5b50\uff0c\u6ef4\u9152\u4e0d\u6cbe\uff0c\u5374\u4e5f\u5728\u9b4f\u739b\u75af\u75af\u766b\u766b (109). Genius has its consequences. It\u2019s not a game.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hope you can attend!<\/p>\n

Date: 1 November, 2012 (Thursday)
\nTime: 5:00 \u2013 6:30 p.m.
\nVenue: G4302, Green Zone, 4\/F, Academic 1, City University of Hong Kong<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Book Review Seminar with Xi Chuan features Chris Lupke’s review of my translations, Notes on the Mosquito. Because it’s still forthcoming in print, I can’t reproduce the entire review, but here’s an excerpt of Lupke’s intricate and sensitive take … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,9,814,16,7],"tags":[808,291,38,435,541,811,807,809,806,659,805],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-lY","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":602,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=602","url_meta":{"origin":1362,"position":0},"title":"Xi Chuan at the MLA–Today!","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"January 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"from the MLA's listing: 347. A Creative Conversation with the Chinese Poet Xi Chuan Friday, 6 January, 5:15\u20136:30 p.m., Grand B, Sheraton Program arranged by the Office of the Executive Director Presiding: Christopher M. Lupke, Washington State Univ., Pullman Speaker: Xi Chuan, Central Acad. of Fine Arts, Beijing Session Description:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Poetry Nights"","block_context":{"text":"International Poetry Nights","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":589,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=589","url_meta":{"origin":1362,"position":1},"title":"Xi Chuan at the MLA","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"January 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy New Year! If you'll be at the MLA in Seattle this year--or in the area on Friday, January 6--please join me in attending the \"Creative Conversation with the Chinese Poet Xi Chuan\" from 5:15 to 6:30 in the Sheraton, room Grand B. Despite the lame title, the event should\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Poetry Nights"","block_context":{"text":"International Poetry Nights","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":912,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=912","url_meta":{"origin":1362,"position":2},"title":"#XiChuan","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Scrounging through the series of tubes that make up the internet the other day I came across someone's Twitter feed from January, posting live updates from my event with Xi Chuan and Chris Lupke at the MLA. After the event I posted Rachel Blau DuPlessis's excellent response to \"Hearing Xi\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4695,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4695","url_meta":{"origin":1362,"position":3},"title":"Krenz on Chinese Poetic Modernisms edited by Lupke and Manfredi","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Joanna Krenz on Chinese Poetic Modernisms MCLC has published Joanna Krenz\u2019s review of Chinese Poetic Modernisms (Brill, 2019), edited by Paul Manfredi and Christopher Lupke, which includes my chapter \u201cAnnotating Aporias of History: the \u2018International Style\u2019, Chinese Modernism, and World Literature in Xi Chuan\u2019s Poetry.\u201d She writes: one need only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/u.osu.edu\/mclc\/files\/2019\/11\/31cBxX1bSoL._SX326_BO1204203200_-197x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1359,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1359","url_meta":{"origin":1362,"position":4},"title":"Xi Chuan in Hong Kong","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Tomorrow at City University of Hong Kong. Date: 1 November, 2012 (Thursday) Time: 5:00 \u2013 6:30 p.m. Venue: G4302, Green Zone, 4\/F, Academic 1, City University of Hong Kong","rel":"","context":"In "Readings"","block_context":{"text":"Readings","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/XC-Book-Review-Seminar-poster.jpg-724x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/XC-Book-Review-Seminar-poster.jpg-724x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/XC-Book-Review-Seminar-poster.jpg-724x1024.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":620,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=620","url_meta":{"origin":1362,"position":5},"title":"Rachel Blau DuPlessis on Hearing Xi Chuan for the First Time","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"January 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 American poet Rachel Blau DuPlessis attended last week's discussion at the MLA between Xi Chuan and Chris Lupke. The following excellent essay is her take on the event: A Note on hearing Xi Chuan for the First Time Rachel Blau DuPlessis The poet Xi Chuan appeared at the annual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Readings"","block_context":{"text":"Readings","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1380,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions\/1380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}