{"id":2093,"date":"2013-07-15T09:30:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T01:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2093"},"modified":"2013-07-08T18:20:07","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T10:20:07","slug":"p-t-smith-on-liao-yiwus-for-a-song-and-a-hundred-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2093","title":{"rendered":"P T Smith on Liao Yiwu’s For a Song and a Hundred Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

At 3% <\/a>P. T. Smith reviews For a Song and a Hundred Songs: A Poet’s Journey through a Chinese\u00a0Prison<\/em> by Liao Yiwu\u00a0\u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66 and translated by Wenguang Huang. Smith doesn’t know family names from given names in Chinese, but that doesn’t keep him from writing a compelling review. Here’s a passage that focuses on the poetry:<\/p>\n

The poem that lands [Liao Yiwu] in jail (\u201cThe Massacre,\u201d published at the end of the book in an English translation by one of Yiwu\u2019s most driven counterrevolutionary friends, Michael Day), comes as the memoir itself does: not from political or cultural goals, but from a consistent attempt to recognize humanity in both compassion and cruelty. He is unflinching in showing that compassion and cruelty are a package deal of being human. Before his arrest, he portrays himself as a selfish, distant husband, capable of violence against his wife and others. In prison, at times he plays himself the monkish hero, at other times a brute, other times simply casually mean; guards can be kind and reasonable, they also torture prisoners for fun; prisoners protect, care for, and even love each other, they also humiliate, beat, and rape each other (of all the seemingly never-ending stomach-churning difficult passages to read, the \u201cmenu\u201d of torture and humiliation options that inmates serve each other is one of the most difficult, emphasized by its bare-bones telling). Early on, Yiwu tells us that he \u201cnever intended to be a hero, but in a country where insanity ruled, I had to take a stand. \u2018Massacre\u2019 was my art and my art was my protest.\u201d Notably, this, one of his strongest statements on the poem, comes after showing not the insanity of those in power, but the cruelty and insanity the average, \u201cbrave and fearless\u201d small-town Chinese are capable of.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click on the image above for the full review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 3% P. T. Smith reviews For a Song and a Hundred Songs: A Poet’s Journey through a Chinese\u00a0Prison by Liao Yiwu\u00a0\u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66 and translated by Wenguang Huang. Smith doesn’t know family names from given names in Chinese, but that doesn’t … 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":[3,16],"tags":[518,330,1163,1162],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-xL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1972,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1972","url_meta":{"origin":2093,"position":0},"title":"VIiv","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"June 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/youtu.be\/H6OVMu6m9FU Liao Yiwu, Meng Huang, Maria Rosen: Performance in\u00a0Stockholm Liao Yiwu\u00a0\u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66 reading his poem \u201cThe Massacre\u201d, Meng Huang \u5b5f\u714c reading his \u201cLetter to Liu Xiaobo in Prison\u201d and Maria Ros\u00e9n singing the Swedish folksong \u201cBallad from Rokn\u00e4s\u201d, 19th March 2013, 9 pm, Sergels Torg, Stockholm, Sweden [from Martin Winter] A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/H6OVMu6m9FU\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1212,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1212","url_meta":{"origin":2093,"position":1},"title":"Frankfurt Book Fair Peace Prize for Liao Yiwu","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"September 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From Publishing Perspectives: In honor of his \u201celoquent and fearless battle against political repression,\u201d the German Publishers and Booksellers Association has awarded its prestigious 2012 Peace Prize to Chinese dissident writer Liao Yiwu [\u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66], who walked out on his native country and landed in Germany a year and a half\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":2863,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2863","url_meta":{"origin":2093,"position":2},"title":"Liao Yiwu’s Massacre","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/68644515 Liao Yiwu \u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66 performs \"Massacre\" \u5927\u5c60\u6740 at the New York Public Library. Uncredited translation by Michael Day.","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2160,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2160","url_meta":{"origin":2093,"position":3},"title":"Liao Yiwu on BBC World Service","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"August 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A BBC feature on Liao Yiwu \u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66, along with commentary by Michael Day. Click on the image to listen to the broadcast.","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2404,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2404","url_meta":{"origin":2093,"position":4},"title":"AAWW Interview with Liao Yiwu","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Jiayang Fan interviews Liao Yiwu \u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66, author of For a Song and a Hundred Songs, for the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Interview translated into English by Liz Carter. Here's an excerpt: Do you think that you, as a Chinese writer, must take a stance on China\u2019s government? Or do you\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":2020,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2020","url_meta":{"origin":2093,"position":5},"title":"New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"June 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry Edited by Ming Di \u00a0 The most up-to-date anthology of contemporary Chinese poetry, translated by American poets and edited by the executive editor of the bilingual literary journal Poetry East West. Showcasing the achievement of Chinese poetry in the last twenty years, a time of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093"}],"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=2093"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2095,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions\/2095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}