{"id":2613,"date":"2014-05-12T09:30:16","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T01:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2613"},"modified":"2014-05-01T23:32:33","modified_gmt":"2014-05-01T15:32:33","slug":"review-of-han-dongs-a-phone-call-from-dalian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2613","title":{"rendered":"Review of Han Dong’s A Phone Call from Dalian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"200\"<\/a>The Modern Chinese Literature & Culture<\/em> list has posted my review of A Phone Call from Dalian<\/em><\/a> \u6765\u81ea\u5927\u8fde\u7684\u7535\u8bdd (Zephyr Press)<\/span>, by Han Dong \u97e9\u4e1c, edited by Nicky Harman. Here’s a<\/span> passage from the middle where I make a point about how having too many anthologies of contemporary Chinese poetry in English has come at the cost of single-author collections, and what that means for how we read and understand the poetry in question:<\/p>\n

The situation of Han Dong within a social context is easy enough to assert, but harder to demonstrate in English, which involves an array of political considerations. I count eleven anthologies of contemporary Chinese poetry published in English around the world since 1990, for instance, but not one single-author collection published in English outside of Asia by a poet living in the PRC until 2008 (the single-author collections of Chinese poetry that were published in English were either poets dead by 1990, poets from Taiwan or Hong Kong, or exiles).<\/a> The overabundance of anthologies would seem like sufficient background within which to place Han Dong, but anthologies necessarily focus on breadth rather than depth, and as a result readers may come away with a sense of motifs common to the poetry as a whole, but not of how individual poets respond either to trends or concerns in poetry or to predicaments in society\u2014which is where style finds definition. In other words, the anthology hides what makes an individual poet individual.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

The Modern Chinese Literature & Culture list has posted my review of A Phone Call from Dalian \u6765\u81ea\u5927\u8fde\u7684\u7535\u8bdd (Zephyr Press), by Han Dong \u97e9\u4e1c, edited by Nicky Harman. Here’s a passage from the middle where I make a point about … 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":[135,399],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-G9","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3498,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3498","url_meta":{"origin":2613,"position":0},"title":"Eberlein on Han Dong in English","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Xujun Eberlein in LARB looks at Han Dong \u97e9\u4e1c in English and asks, \"Is There a Good Way to Translate Chinese Poetry?\" Her answer is clearly yes. She asks, \"why would I want to read a translation that has departed from the original? Wouldn\u2019t I be better off reading original\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lareviewofbooks-org.scdn3.secure.raxcdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/handong-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":855,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=855","url_meta":{"origin":2613,"position":1},"title":"Today at the London Book Fair","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"April 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Xi Chuan will be appearing with SOAS professor Michel Hockx, English poet Pascale Petit, and fellow Chinese poet Han Dong \u97e9\u4e1c at the London Book Fair (click for time & whereabouts). Also keep an eye out for Han Dong's poems, translated by Nicky Harman as A Phone Call from Dalian,\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":2263,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2263","url_meta":{"origin":2613,"position":2},"title":"WLT Review of Han Dong & Ouyang Jianghe","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"World Literature Today has published Josh Stenberg's review of Zephyr books A Phone Call from Dalian by Han Dong\u00a0\u97e9\u4e1c, translated by Nicky Harman, and Doubled Shadows by Ouyang Jianghe \u6b27\u9633\u6c5f\u6cb3, translated by Austin Woerner: Ouyang Jianghe and Han Dong ... both occupy established places in what, for over thirty years,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.worldliteraturetoday.org\/sites\/default\/files\/2013\/September\/dong_aphonecallfromdalian.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2948,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2948","url_meta":{"origin":2613,"position":3},"title":"Asian Cha reviews Han Dong & Lan Lan","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"January 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Lu Jin at Cha reviews A Phone Call from Dalian \u6765\u81ea\u5927\u8fde\u7684\u7535\u8bdd, by Han Dong \u97e9\u4e1c as edited and translated by Nicky Harman, and Canyon in the Body \u8eab\u4f53\u91cc\u7684\u5ce1\u8c37, by Lan Lan \u84dd\u84dd as translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain. While Han Dong's poetry is manly, controlled and ironic, Lan Lan's work is\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":879,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=879","url_meta":{"origin":2613,"position":4},"title":"Words Without Borders on the London Book Fair & Contemporary Chinese Poetry","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"April 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week Words Without Borders was reporting on location from the London Book Fair, and their report from Day 3 is full of excitement about Chinese poetry in English and the newly published Jade Ladder: Contemporary Chinese Poetry, which includes my translations of some of Xi Chuan's work. Here's the\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":3211,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3211","url_meta":{"origin":2613,"position":5},"title":"Nicky Harman featured in China Daily","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"June 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"China Daily Europe has a feature on literary translation from Chinese to English, focusing in particular on Nicky Harman, translator of poet Han Dong \u97e9\u4e1c and others. Harman, who specializes in fiction, nonfiction and poetry, began learning Chinese in 1968 and previously taught translation at Imperial College London. \"At the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/europe.chinadaily.com.cn\/epaper\/images\/attachement\/jpg\/site241\/20150522\/f04da2db112216c8c8412c.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613"}],"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=2613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2615,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613\/revisions\/2615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}