{"id":304,"date":"2011-11-18T10:38:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-18T02:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=304"},"modified":"2011-11-18T10:38:07","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T02:38:07","slug":"art-talk-with-xi-chuan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=304","title":{"rendered":"Art Talk with Xi Chuan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>On the first of November the National Endowment for the Arts<\/a> posted an interview <\/a>between Xi Chuan and Katie Schulze, conducted in English over email while Xi Chuan was on a reading tour in the US promoting Push Open the Window<\/em><\/a> (the NEA partly funded the anthology<\/a>, as part of its five-year literature translation initiative). Xi Chuan’s answers again demonstrate the breadth and depth of his poetic mind. Here’s perhaps my favorite moment:<\/p>\n

NEA: Which one of your poems is the most significant to you\u2014in terms of subject, or the evolution or your work, or some other criteria?<\/strong><\/p>\n

XI CHUAN: A series named \u201cSalute,\u201d finished in 1992. 1989 abolished my method of writing poetry. Prior to 1989 I had many model poets that I tried to follow. Later, I found that these models were not enough for me to express myself. I almost stopped writing between 1989 and 1992; there was a crash in my heart, so I started writing notes. In 1992, I wrote \u201cSalute\u201d and it started with notes to vomit emotions\/experiences about dark things that happened between 1989-1992. After I wrote this poem, I changed absolutely. Before I had an \u201cI\u201d in my heart; later I found [that it was multiple] \u201cI\u2019s\u201d and not \u201cwe.\u201d I found that all these deceased people live in my heart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the first of November the National Endowment for the Arts posted an interview between Xi Chuan and Katie Schulze, conducted in English over email while Xi Chuan was on a reading tour in the US promoting Push Open the … 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":[13,3,7],"tags":[121,120,25,1654],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-4U","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=11","url_meta":{"origin":304,"position":0},"title":"Xi Chuan & Zhou Zan US Reading Tour for Copper Canyon Press","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"September 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Xi Chuan will be reading with Zhou Zan \u5468\u74d2 to promote the publication of the NEA Anthology Push Open the Window: Contemporary Poetry from China (featuring my translations of three Xi Chuan pieces, as well as some by Qing Ping \u6e05\u5e73). Event Dates: September 29, 7:00 p.m. Seattle, WA: Seattle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Readings"","block_context":{"text":"Readings","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":175,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=175","url_meta":{"origin":304,"position":1},"title":"Push Open the Window Write-up","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Over at Writing Without Paper Maureen has posted a quick write-up of Copper Canyon Press's NEA-sponsored anthology of contemporary Chinese poetry, Push Open the Window. An informative list of details more than a review proper, it's nonetheless valuable for its collection of links to Chinese poetry in English translation, as\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":468,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=468","url_meta":{"origin":304,"position":2},"title":"Ashbery and \/ or Xi Chuan","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"December 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been reading, and reading about, John Ashbery recently, in part because translating Xi Chuan has put me in mind to look at the development of the prose poem in English--and Ashbery's Three Poems (Viking Compass, 1972), of course, were fundamental in the expansion & popularization of that form--but also\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":1128,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1128","url_meta":{"origin":304,"position":3},"title":"Contemporary Poetry from China: A Reading and Discussion with Xi Chuan and Zhou Zan","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"August 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/youtu.be\/l4PhZxQTD_E Poetry reading and discussion with Xi Chuan and Zhou Zan\u00a0\u5468\u74d2 at the Library of Congress last October in promotion of Push Open the Window. Xi Chuan read his poems in Chinese and English in my translation; Zhou Zan read her poems in Chinese, with English translations read by Carolyn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthologies"","block_context":{"text":"Anthologies","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/l4PhZxQTD_E\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":245,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=245","url_meta":{"origin":304,"position":4},"title":"Weinberger & Subin in Hongkong","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I had lunch yesterday with Nina Subin & Eliot Weinberger (New Directions author and translator of Octavio Paz and Bei Dao \u5317\u5cf6, among others), in town for work with Chinese University Press on their way to Vietnam and Laos. The topics--they're epic conversationalists--ranged from Cantonese cuisine to museums under colonialism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthologies"","block_context":{"text":"Anthologies","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/U2JDMad1VZA\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":109,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=109","url_meta":{"origin":304,"position":5},"title":"Xi Chuan Interview","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The inimitable Paul Nelson met Xi Chuan when they both attended the Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival \u9752\u6d77\u6e56\u56fd\u9645\u8bd7\u6b4c\u8282 last August. After Xi Chuan's Copper Canyon reading in Seattle, Paul met with Xi Chuan for an interview, part one of which has just been posted on splab.org. In English, the interview\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\/304"}],"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=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}