{"id":4252,"date":"2018-09-17T20:30:26","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T12:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4252"},"modified":"2018-09-14T18:28:17","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T10:28:17","slug":"art-talk-with-jennifer-feeley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4252","title":{"rendered":"Art Talk with Jennifer Feeley"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Headshot<\/a>The National Endowment for the Arts<\/a> website has published its interview with Jennifer Feeley. “When Jennifer Feeley was in high school,” they introduce her,<\/p>\n

one of her creative writing teachers encouraged students to read as many books of poetry as possible. It was during forays to the library in search of poetry volumes that Feeley stumbled upon 100 Poems from the Chinese<\/em>, translated by Kenneth Rexroth … \u201cI fell in love with them, and wanted to be able to read the originals one day,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the interview Feeley discusses how she handles the word play of poetry by Hong Kong writer Xi Xi \u897f\u897f —<\/p>\n

She’s an author whose work hinges on wordplay that is firmly rooted in the Chinese language, and that she uses as both a rhetorical device and for humorous effect. It seems impossible to translate such wordplay into English.<\/p>\n

But I love a good challenge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— and also offers a great metaphor for understanding the work of translation: knitting.<\/p>\n

I think of the original text as the pattern the author has made, let\u2019s say [for a] hat. My translation is looking at the pattern and making my own hat. Of course it\u2019s going to turn out differently depending on different factors. What kind of needles I use\u2014do I use bamboo or metal? What\u2019s the needle size? What kind of yarn do I use? What\u2019s the weight of the yarn? What kind of fibers? What kind of color? I always drop stitches and add stitches\u2014these are the accidental mistakes that happen. Sometimes they make the text better; sometimes they’re just mistakes.<\/p>\n

I use that to think about the labor in translation. It’s so easy to say, \u201cYou’re not the real author.\u201d But in fact when you’re the translator, that’s 100 percent your labor. If I’m knitting a hat, the hat is 100 percent my labor. Yes, I’m basing it off this pattern that someone else wrote and of course it’s going to look different than the product they originally made. But the hat I’ve made is all my work. I have the sore fingers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

The National Endowment for the Arts website has published its interview with Jennifer Feeley. “When Jennifer Feeley was in high school,” they introduce her, one of her creative writing teachers encouraged students to read as many books of poetry as … 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":[597,30,1522],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-16A","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4753,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4753","url_meta":{"origin":4252,"position":0},"title":"Feeley interviewed at Chinese Books for Young Readers","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Jennifer Feeley interviewed at Chinese Books for Young Readers Poetry translator Jennifer Feeley is the featured interviewee at Chinese books for young readers: Could you tell us a bit about yourself, how you came to learn Chinese and start translating?I attended an arts high school, where I majored in Creative\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/image-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3866,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3866","url_meta":{"origin":4252,"position":1},"title":"Feeley’s Xi Xi wins Lucien Stryk Prize","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Congratulations to Jennifer Feeley for winning the 2017 Lucien Stryk Prize for her translation of Not Written Words \u4e0d\u662f\u6587\u5b57, by Xi Xi \u897f\u897f!","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/literarytranslators.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/08\/notwritten_w.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1014,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1014","url_meta":{"origin":4252,"position":2},"title":"Jennifer Feeley on Flash Fiction from Contemporary China","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"July 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Modern Chinese Literature & Culture has just published Jennifer Feeley's review of\u00a0The Pearl Jacket and Other Stories: Flash Fiction From Contemporary China, edited by Shouhua Qi \u7941\u5bff\u534e. While there's a discussion to be had about the relationship, or difference, between flash fiction and prose poetry, Qi's anthology doesn't seem to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthologies"","block_context":{"text":"Anthologies","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mclc.osu.edu\/rc\/pubs\/reviews\/qi.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3434,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3434","url_meta":{"origin":4252,"position":3},"title":"Tang Siu Wa, Zang Di, Yang Xiaobin, Feeley, Goodman, and Morse on Poetry & Translation","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Tang Siu Wa \u9127\u5c0f\u6a3a, Zang Di \u81e7\u68e3, Yang Xiaobin \u694a\u5c0f\u6ff1, Jennifer Feeley, Eleanor Goodman, and Canaan Morse read and talk about poetry and translation at the Vermont Studio Center: https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/vermont-studio-center\/resident-profile-chinese-poets-and-translators-in-conversation","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4611,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4611","url_meta":{"origin":4252,"position":4},"title":"\u201cTiananmen Thirty Years On\u201d feature at Cha","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"July 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cTiananmen Thirty Years On\u201d at Cha Announcing the June\/July issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, the \u201cTiananmen Thirty Years On\u201d feature, edited by Tammy Lai-Ming Ho and Lucas Klein, along with a special feature of poems by and in mourning of Meng Lang \u5b5f\u6d6a. The following CONTRIBUTORS have generously\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.asiancha.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Tiananmen_CHA_Feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4468,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4468","url_meta":{"origin":4252,"position":5},"title":"Xi Xi Newman Prize Schedule","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Hong Kong writer and poet Xi Xi \u897f\u897f will be at the University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK) to receive the 6th Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, on March 7-8, 2019. She will be taking part in public events with Ho Fuk Yan \u4f55\u798f\u4ec1, Tammy Ho, Jennifer Feeley, Man-fung Yip, Ping\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\/4252"}],"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=4252"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4258,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4252\/revisions\/4258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}