{"id":2097,"date":"2013-07-18T09:30:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T01:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2097"},"modified":"2013-07-17T23:53:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-17T15:53:27","slug":"asymptote-reviews-bai-huas-wind-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2097","title":{"rendered":"Asymptote Reviews Bai Hua’s Wind Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The new issue of Asymptote<\/em> features Henry Leung’s review of Wind Says<\/em><\/a> \u98ce\u5728\u8bf4, poems by Bai Hua \u67cf\u6866 translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain. Here’s what he has to say on the poetry and translation:<\/p>\n

\n
Beginning especially with the “Hand Notes on Mountain and Water” section in Wind Says<\/em>, his poems become more staccato, numbered, and jagged, pinballing from image to image\u2014freeing up the range of movement. One of my favorite lines is section 4 in “Hand Notes,” which reads in its entirety: “He has a dawn-like spirit, but his punctuality expresses his sadness.” And the poem ends with a rhyme of action that would not be so poignant or direct without the sharp cuts of white space around each line:<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

26<\/em>
\n He smashes ants with a hammer.<\/em>
\n27<\/em>
\n That maid picks up and walks away with two pieces of dog shit.<\/em>
\n That old man rubs two peaches like rubbing two testicles.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
These are uninflected juxtapositions of images. They don’t require explanation or rhetoric; the images spin a vitality out of their own mysteries.<\/div>\n
Sometimes I wonder if certain lines that fall flat\u2014such as “infinitely, infinitely …” in “Character Sketches,” a line so poor compared to its succeeding line\u00a0with the same function, “fiddling with an eternal bell on a bike”\u2014are flaws of the original, or of the translation, or simply of the incapacity of English to carry abstractions the way Chinese can. On the translation itself, I must note some occasional awkwardness that is misdirecting more than productive\u2014”Opposite windows open” is a mistranslation of what would mean “the windows opposite”; “The third story (can’t help but) begin(s) from romance” is an overcomplication of the original parenthetical; and so on\u2014but overall the translation is admirable. Sometimes Sze-Lorrain even improves on the original, as in the exquisite cadence of “who blows now \/ who is fire \/ who is the convulsing arm of a new flower” in “Beauty.” And by no means can I fault a translator who can bring us this couplet from “Fish”:<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n

Born as metaphor to clarify a fact:<\/em>
\n the throat where ambiguous pain begins<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Interesting, though, that amidst a discussion of translation, Leung would focus on the line “That old man rubs two peaches like rubbing two testicles” without mentioning that this is, in fact, a mistranslation: the line in Chinese is \u90a3\u8001\u4eba\u6413\u7740\u4e24\u4e2a\u6838\u6843\u82e5\u6413\u7740\u4e24\u4e2a\u777e\u4e38, so the old man is rubbing walnuts, not peaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new issue of Asymptote features Henry Leung’s review of Wind Says \u98ce\u5728\u8bf4, poems by Bai Hua \u67cf\u6866 translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain. Here’s what he has to say on the poetry and translation: Beginning especially with the “Hand Notes on … 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":[59,228,278],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-xP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1566,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1566","url_meta":{"origin":2097,"position":0},"title":"Bai Hua’s Wind Says at Received & Recommended","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"January 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The weblog Received & Recommended has received--and recommends--Wind Says \u98ce\u5728\u8bf4 (Zephyr Press), by Bai Hua \u67cf\u6866, translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain (click here for their write-up of Fiona's Water the Moon). Here's what they say: Bai Hua\u2019s poetic style, potent and complex, when paired with Fiona Sze-Lorrain\u2019s remarkable talent for translation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/receivedandrecommended.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/01\/514d4letjol-_ss500_.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1417,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1417","url_meta":{"origin":2097,"position":1},"title":"Wind Says, by Bai Hua","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"WIND SAYS Bai Hua \u67cf\u6866 translated from Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain ISBN 978-0-9832970-6-2 (paper) $15 6 x 8 200 pages Considered the central literary figure of the post-Obscure (or post-\u201dMisty\u201d) poetry movement during the 1980s, Bai Hua is one of the most influential poets in contemporary China. Born in 1956\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":1677,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1677","url_meta":{"origin":2097,"position":2},"title":"SCMP on Bai Hua’s Wind Says","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The South China Morning Post has published a review of Wind Says \u98ce\u5728\u8bf4 (Zephyr Press), by Bai Hua \u67cf\u6866 and translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain. It's a positive review, but it's a horribly written one: full of cliches about Chinese essences (\"Messages are conveyed in sharp but poignant images, paying homage\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":267,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=267","url_meta":{"origin":2097,"position":3},"title":"New Issue of Cerise Press","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The new issue of Cerise Press, the French-based English-language online literature journal, is now available. In addition to translations of poems by editor Fiona Sze-Lorrain of Chinese poets Lan Lan \u84dd\u84dd and Bai Hua \u67cf\u6866 (who\u2019s also interviewed), the current issue features translations of Korean poet Ko Un by Brother\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Cerise-3.8-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Cerise-3.8-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Cerise-3.8-cover.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2151,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2151","url_meta":{"origin":2097,"position":4},"title":"Fiona Sze-Lorrain featured in China Daily","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"August 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Solving a riddle with a harp and the magic of words\" As a student at Columbia University, she dabbled in theater, writing and East Asian studies, and came to realize that there was more to be understood in the space between words and cultures, she said. 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