{"id":402,"date":"2011-11-26T11:34:05","date_gmt":"2011-11-26T03:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=402"},"modified":"2011-11-26T11:34:05","modified_gmt":"2011-11-26T03:34:05","slug":"review-of-push-open-the-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=402","title":{"rendered":"Review of Push Open the Window"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over at <a href=\"http:\/\/therumpus.net\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Rumpus<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/coffeephilosopher.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Christopher Honey <\/a>has a <a href=\"http:\/\/therumpus.net\/2011\/11\/the-night-is-a-gods-wound\/\" target=\"_blank\">review <\/a>of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coppercanyonpress.org\/pages\/browse\/book.asp?bg=%7B2855B44E-88A9-48F1-AAB9-FA2388DCDAC1%7D\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Push Open the Window: Contemporary Poetry from China<\/em><\/a>. It&#8217;s not a perfect review, in my mind&#8211;he doesn&#8217;t acknowledge the translators by name&#8211;but he does raise some interesting issues and questions. Here are a few I found worth considering (which is not to say agreeing with):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>From my own personal experience, I always wonder who I am reading when I read Rexroth\u2019s beautiful collections of Asian poetry in translation. Am I reading Tu Fu or am I actually reading Rexroth?<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nThe quality and sophistication of the poets seems to go up as the poets get younger and younger. The earliest poets have a sort of untutored enthusiasm \u2013 almost like na\u00efve art \u2013 touched by the political.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nI do not believe I am going out on a limb by saying that the more recent poets in <em>Push Open the Window<\/em> are much more fully connected to the larger literary world. As barriers to the rest of the world have dropped, poets have benefitted by cross pollination with other traditions.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nThe number of translators also led to another potential issue. A single translator would have enabled a more accurate understanding of the development and changes within Chinese poetry over the last fifty years. With so many different translators, how can one be sure that a perceived, new rhetorical addition to the bag of tricks available to Chinese poets isn\u2019t just a tic of one translator as opposed to another?<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nIt is hard to escape seeing it a sort of historical or sociological document on the evolution of literary schema rather than as a work of literature. What is more, with the variations in the quality of the poems, I find it hard to believe that historical thinking was not a factor in the selection process \u2013 that this book was intended to document the progress of literary evolution and not just to provide the best literary products.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over at The Rumpus, Christopher Honey has a review of Push Open the Window: Contemporary Poetry from China. It&#8217;s not a perfect review, in my mind&#8211;he doesn&#8217;t acknowledge the translators by name&#8211;but he does raise some interesting issues and questions. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=402\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[13,3,16],"tags":[179,180,30,25],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-6u","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":468,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=468","url_meta":{"origin":402,"position":0},"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 &quot;Links&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3946,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3946","url_meta":{"origin":402,"position":1},"title":"Asian American Writers&#8217; Workshop recommends Asian Literature","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"December 6, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 The Asian American Writers' Workshop has collected recommendations from noted American writers and publishers for what to read of Asian literature. And unsurprisingly, Chinese poets and poetry are well-represented. Barbara Epler, president of New Directions publishing, recommends Li Shangyin and Bei Dao, among others. She writes: I am torn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Links&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aaww.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/collage.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":800,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=800","url_meta":{"origin":402,"position":2},"title":"Ocean of Poetry","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I just found out about Ocean of Poetry, a new website featuring all sorts of information and examples of classical Chinese poetry in English translation, edited by Stuart Carduner and translator J. P. Seaton. The translation of classical Chinese poetry over the past century has contributed to the development of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Links&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=28","url_meta":{"origin":402,"position":3},"title":"Write-up of Xi Chuan &#038; Zhou Zan&#8217;s Port Townsend Reading","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Italian translator Matt Rowe attended the recent Xi Chuan \/ Zhou Zan reading, and offered the following write-up: Xi Chuan and Zhou Zan read on Saturday 1 October in Port Townsend, the second stop on their U.S. tour for the new anthology Push Open The Window. The audience was small\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Readings&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Readings","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=115","url_meta":{"origin":402,"position":4},"title":"Forrest Gander&#8217;s Introduction of Xi Chuan &#038; Zhou Zan","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The night of October 10 (the hundred-year anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution \u8f9b\u4ea5\u9769\u547d that ended the Qing Dynasty \u6e05\u671d), Forrest Gander introduced Xi Chuan, Zhou Zan, Marilyn Chin, and Li-young Lee at Manhattan's 92nd St. Y. Here's the text of his introduction: This occasion is as much a celebration of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Publications&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Publications","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":109,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=109","url_meta":{"origin":402,"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 &quot;Links&quot;","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\/402"}],"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=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}