{"id":2142,"date":"2013-08-07T09:30:34","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T01:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2142"},"modified":"2013-07-31T11:09:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-31T03:09:11","slug":"2142","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2142","title":{"rendered":"Ancestral Intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In Ancestral Intelligence<\/em>, Vera Schwarcz has added a forceful and fascinating work to her ever-growing list of publications depicting the cultural landscape of contemporary China. Here, she has created stunning \u201crenditions\u201d of poems by a mid-20th Century dissident poet, Chen Yinke \u9673\u5bc5\u606a (1890 \u2013 1969), and has added a group of her own poems in harmony with Chen Yinke\u2019s. Like his, her poems show a degradation of culture and humanity, in this case through comparison of classic and modern Chinese logographs. Early readers of the book have been universally enthusiastic. Sam Hamill writes, \u201cThis deeply engaging celebration of the life and work of Chen Yinke is masterful in its blending of biography, history, linguistics, and poetic adaptation. If the scholarship is vast, the presentation is elegantly swift and insightful. And the poetry (not only Chen Yinke\u2019s but also the author\u2019s own collection of \u2018logograph poems\u2019) speaks clearly, powerfully, and passionately. Ancestral Intelligence<\/em> is a magnificent accomplishment.\u201d Mai Mang (Yibing Huang) adds this: \u201cThrough Ancestral Intelligence<\/em>, Vera Schwarcz proves that a poet and a historian are one and the same: both must work against the flow of time and revive buried voices. That\u2019s why we continue to read and listen.\u201d And this praise from Eleanor Goodman: \u201cThe language of these poems lives in two worlds, gleaming across boundaries, thanks to the skill and insight of poet and historian Vera Schwarcz. In the tragic yet inspiring story of Chen Yinke, Schwarcz finds her own powerful way of articulating the horrors of political oppression, and also the smaller but no less difficult personal afflictions of growing old, seeing loved ones suffer, and witnessing the degradation of one\u2019s culture and language. Along with their illuminating exploration of the loss of traditional Chinese ideograms on the mainland, these poems are a kind of primer in empathy, as Schwarcz opens a window onto twentieth-century China and one brave man who, with his intellectual courage and creative output, stood in the way of a dubious \u2018progress.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click the image above for more information & sample poems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Ancestral Intelligence, Vera Schwarcz has added a forceful and fascinating work to her ever-growing list of publications depicting the cultural landscape of contemporary China. Here, she has created stunning \u201crenditions\u201d of poems by a mid-20th Century dissident poet, Chen … 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],"tags":[1186,1187,388,230,341,542,926],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8srwF-2142","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3520,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3520","url_meta":{"origin":2142,"position":0},"title":"Qiu on the Poems of Inspector Chen","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"July 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"LARB has published Qiu Xiaolong's \u88d8\u5c0f\u9f99 Poems of Inspector Chen, the poetry of the fictional hero of Qiu's Detective Chen novels: Chen Cao started writing during his college years in the early eighties, a period sometimes described as a \u201cgolden\u201d one for modern Chinese poetry.\u00a0 After the end of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pcxsx1namun1ljpw72henvgf.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/51ogn-PhntL._SX331_BO1204203200_-1-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":635,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=635","url_meta":{"origin":2142,"position":1},"title":"Mycal Ford’s Video Adaptation of a Xi Chuan Poem","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"January 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hycgBhNIIKc The above piece is a video shot & directed by Mycal Ford, a student at Pacific Lutheran University (the actress is Mikela Moore, and the voice-over work is by David Chen, both also of PLU). I find it a pretty fascinating take on one of Xi Chuan's poems, \"Sunset\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\/hycgBhNIIKc\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":931,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=931","url_meta":{"origin":2142,"position":2},"title":"Jade Ladder’s Poets","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I've compiled a list of the poets whose work appears in English translation in Jade Ladder, the new anthology of contemporary Chinese poetry edited by Yang Lian \u6768\u70bc, W N Herbert, Brian Holton, and Qin Xiaoyu \u79e6\u6653\u5b87. The anthology presents the work of poets by birth year, but the work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthologies"","block_context":{"text":"Anthologies","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1605,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1605","url_meta":{"origin":2142,"position":3},"title":"New Issue of Poetry Sky \u8bd7\u5929\u7a7a","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Chinese to English \u4e2d\u8bd7\u82f1\u8bd1 \u96ea\u9a6c Xue Ma \u51af\u51ac Peter Feng \u4e00\u7b11 Yi Xiao \u674e\u5b50\u826f Ziliang Li \u9ad8\u4e9a\u658c Yabin Gao \u79cb\u6c34 Qiu Shui \u5411\u5929\u7b11 Tianxiao Xiang \u6881\u5143 Yuan Liang \u9a6c\u5fe0 Ma Zhong \u738b\u7406\u6cc9 Liquan Wang English to Chinese \u82f1\u8bd7\u4e2d\u8bd1 Daniela Gioseffi \u4e39\u59ae\u827e\u62c9-\u5409\u6b27\u8272\u83f2 Vera Schwarcz \u8587\u62c9-\u65bd\u5a03\u8328 Rita Dove \u4e3d\u8fbe-\u591a\u7ef4 Robert Frost \u7f57\u4f2f\u7279-\u4f5b\u6d1b\u65af\u7279","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2440,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2440","url_meta":{"origin":2142,"position":4},"title":"Qiu Xiaolong & Jonathan Stalling at The Conversant","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Jonathan Stalling speaks with Qiu Xiaolong at TheConversant.org. Qiu Xiaolong (\u88d8\u5c0f\u9f99 ) began writing poems in Chinese in 1978, when he studied under the well-known Chinese poet, Bian Zhilin (\u535e\u4e4b\u7433). \u00a0After moving to the U.S., Qiu shifted to writing in English, and while he has continued to write and publish\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theconversant.org\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/qui.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2138,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2138","url_meta":{"origin":2142,"position":5},"title":"Xi Murong: Poets and poetry never die","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"August 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes I hate how poetry gets covered in the press. At the annual Hong Kong Book Fair some readers admit they rarely read poems, though they like poetry. College student Miss Chen shares why she thinks poetry is fading from contemporary culture. \"In our society, people, in most of the\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\/2142"}],"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=2142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2144,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142\/revisions\/2144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}