{"id":3854,"date":"2017-09-13T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T01:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3854"},"modified":"2017-09-12T10:25:26","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T02:25:26","slug":"turner-on-bei-daos-city-gate-open-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3854","title":{"rendered":"Turner on Bei Dao’s City Gate, Open Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>The World of Chinese<\/em> has run Matt Turner’s informative review of Bei Dao’s City Gate, Open Up<\/em>, “Goodbye, Beijing<\/a>.”<\/div>\n

Turner begins with pennamed Bei Dao’s birth and name:<\/p>\n

Construction worker, underground publisher, and acclaimed poet, Zhao Zhenkai (\u8d75\u632f\u5f00<\/em>) was born, in his own words, in 1949, \u201cas Chairman Mao declared the birth of the People\u2019s Republic of China from the rostrum in Tian\u2019anmen Square\u2026in [a] cradle no more than a thousand yards away.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, he would accrue near-celebrity status for his pseudonymous poetry, which was wild and defiant\u2014and unlike anything in circulation at the time. His fame brought enemies, however, and attacks by official censors. Zhao\u2019s pen name, Bei Dao (\u5317\u5c9b<\/em>, \u201cNorthern Island\u201d), reflected such conflicted feelings: love for his northern home, as well as desire to be free of others\u2019 impositions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The book is “written in dreamlike vignettes,” Turner says, and “translated with little poetic license by Jeffrey Yang.”<\/p>\n

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

The World of Chinese has run Matt Turner’s informative review of Bei Dao’s City Gate, Open Up, “Goodbye, Beijing.” Turner begins with pennamed Bei Dao’s birth and name: Construction worker, underground publisher, and acclaimed poet, Zhao Zhenkai (\u8d75\u632f\u5f00) was born, … 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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[50,45,552,1710],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-10a","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3757,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3757","url_meta":{"origin":3854,"position":0},"title":"Wenguang Huang on Bei Dao’s City Gate, Open Up","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In \"A Poet Who Survived Mao,\" Wenguang Huang reviews City Gate, Open Up \u57ce\u95e8\u5f00, the new memoir by Bei Dao \u5317\u5c9b, for the Wall Street Journal. Huang writes: In 18 essays, crafted with poetic precision and enriched by Jeffrey Yang\u2019s assiduous translation, Bei Dao depicts a cast of memorable characters\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":3777,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3777","url_meta":{"origin":3854,"position":1},"title":"Gewirtz on Bei Dao’s City Gate, Open Up","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Poetry Foundation has published \"Bei Dao\u2019s Beijing: The eminent Chinese poet on exile and his native city,\" Julian Gewirtz's review of City Gate, Open Up, the newly published memoirs of Bei Dao \u5317\u5c9b, translated by Jeffrey Yang. The review also\u00a0weaves in decades of Bei Dao\u2019s poetry, creating a compelling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/media.poetryfoundation.org\/m\/image\/14859","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3857,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3857","url_meta":{"origin":3854,"position":2},"title":"Turner on Bei Dao & Weinberger at Columbia","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"September 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"To promote City Gate, Open Up, Bei Dao \u5317\u5c9b appeared with Eliot Weinberger at Columbia University on September 26. Matt Turner was in the audience, and here he gives his report on the evening: We sat down in a very bright, medium-sized lecture hall that looked like it was modeled\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=814"},"img":{"alt_text":"Image may contain: 2 people, people sitting","src":"https:\/\/scontent.fhkg4-1.fna.fbcdn.net\/v\/t1.0-9\/22046557_10155650723013798_5329162269479408173_n.jpg?oh=a78c8bdb4b929d1a735c090fed452e99&oe=5A85DDCC","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1299,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1299","url_meta":{"origin":3854,"position":3},"title":"Review of Bei Dao’s The Rose of Time: New and Selected Poems","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Jonathan Hart reviews Bei Dao's \u5317\u5cf6 The Rose of Time: New and Selected Poems (New Directions), edited by Eliot Weinberger, speaking \"about these translations as if they were poems in English on which the reputation of the poet stands in the English-speaking world.\" He concludes that \"Bei Dao\u2019s poetry translates\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hcl.harvard.edu\/harvardreview\/OnlineJournal\/HRO_7\/reviews\/Dao_lg.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3847,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3847","url_meta":{"origin":3854,"position":4},"title":"ARB on Bei Dao’s City Gate, Open Up","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"August 25, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"London-based poet Jennifer Wong's review of\u00a0City Gate, Open Up, by Bei Dao \u5317\u5cf6 and translated by Jeffrey Yang, is now up at\u00a0Asian Review of Books. \"Born and raised in Beijing,\" the review begins, \"Bei Dao spent decades in exile in Europe because of his alleged involvement in the Tiananmen Massacre\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":4744,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4744","url_meta":{"origin":3854,"position":5},"title":"Jeje on Bei Dao\u2019s Blue House","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 4, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Akin Jeje on Bei Dao's Blue House Writing for Cha, Akin Jeje reviews Blue House (Zephyr, 2000) by Bei Dao \u5317\u5cf6, transalted by Ted Huters and Feng-ying Ming. Bei Dao\u2019s memoirs in Blue House are stunning in their modesty, candour and startling clarity. As placid and yet as intense as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/chajournal.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/12\/blue-house.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854"}],"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=3854"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3856,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions\/3856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}