{"id":4607,"date":"2019-06-26T20:30:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T12:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4607"},"modified":"2019-06-24T09:28:38","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T01:28:38","slug":"goodman-interviewed-for-shanghai-literary-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4607","title":{"rendered":"Goodman Interviewed for Shanghai Literary Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Brian Haman of The Shanghai Literary Review<\/a><\/em> <\/a>has interviewed poet and translator Eleanor Goodman “about translating Chinese literature, gender dynamics within contemporary Chinese poetry, linguistic and geographical liminality, and the meaning of home.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The questions start out rote, but it’s not long before the conversation gets going:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BH<\/strong>: Do you think that there\u2019s a cross-pollination between the translation work and your work as a poet? Is there a continuity of images, themes, or ideas? And how do you choose the works that you translate?<\/p>

Goodman<\/strong>: … On a linguistic level, I\u2019m very interested in the plasticity of Chinese, the way that the different grammatical elements can be put together in more configurations than can generally be done naturally in English. For a while I was very interested in this technique that some Chinese poets use where you have what seems to be an integral line of poetry and then the next line casts a different meaning on it. Ambiguous subject or ambiguous nouns, leaving out \u201che\u201d or \u201cshe\u201d or \u201cit,\u201d the lack of certain things like noun markers \u2013 there\u2019s a kind of ambiguity that Chinese poets manipulate beautifully and to great effect and I sometimes try to play with that in my own work. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And, on the role of gender in the field of Chinese poetry today, she says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Chinese poetry there are shiren<\/em> (\u8bd7\u4eba<\/em>) [poet] and n\u00fc shiren<\/em> (\u5973\u8bd7\u4eba<\/em>) [female poet]. Poetry is still considered a male game: men write about the important topics; they have an expansive, outward looking view; they\u2019re philosophical; they have deep thoughts. Women, in stark contrast, write about jiating shiqing<\/em> (\u5bb6\u5ead\u4e8b\u60c5<\/em>) [the household]: they write about domestic things such as children and making dinner. They\u2019re inward looking rather than outward looking. And those kinds of attitudes are deeply entrenched in the Chinese poetry world, and not just among male poets but also to some degree among a minority set of women poets, who have internalized this and who do write about flowers in springtime \u2013 not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that (after all, Wordsworth wrote about such things). But the majority of female poets that I come into contact with are infuriated by this assumed hierarchy and the limitations that they constantly come up against.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Follow the link for the interview in full.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Haman of The Shanghai Literary Review has interviewed poet and translator Eleanor Goodman “about translating Chinese literature, gender dynamics within contemporary Chinese poetry, linguistic and geographical liminality, and the meaning of home.” The questions start out rote, but it’s … 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":[2123,388],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-1cj","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2541,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2541","url_meta":{"origin":4607,"position":0},"title":"Asymptote’s 3rd Anniversary in Shanghai","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"To celebrate turning 3, Asymptote will make its first-ever appearance in Shanghai on 29 Mar (Saturday) at Anne-Cecile Noique ART! In collaboration with NYU Shanghai, we jointly present \"New Voices from South Korea and China,\" featuring Asymptote contributors Eleanor Goodman and Eun Joo Kim. Eleanor Goodman will be reading her\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":3397,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3397","url_meta":{"origin":4607,"position":1},"title":"Goodman on Chinese Poetry Scenes in LARB","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Last November Austin Dean interviewed Eleanor Goodman for the Los Angeles Review of Books: What aspects of the lives and works of Chinese poets and writers are under-reported or under-acknowledged in English-language writing on China? In other words, what types of question should we be asking that we aren\u2019t currently\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":4005,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4005","url_meta":{"origin":4607,"position":2},"title":"NYU Shanghai Conversation on the State of the Art of Chinese Poetry Translation","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Panel Discussion Chinese Poetry in Translation: A Conversation on the State of the Art Join a panel of leading translators, scholars of contemporary Chinese poetry, and translation theorists for a conversation about the state of the art in 2018. Discussion will highlight Chinese poets whose work challenges conceptions of a\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":3864,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3864","url_meta":{"origin":4607,"position":3},"title":"Foster on Qin & Goodman’s Iron Moon","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Kate Hanson Foster reviews Iron Moon: An Anthology of Chinese Migrant Worker Poetry, edited by Qin Xiaoyu \u79e6\u6653\u5b87 and translated by Eleanor Goodman, for The Somerville Times. Foster writes: The translations by Eleanor Goodman are an impeccable achievement of negotiating two linguistic landscapes. Multiple layers of artistry are at play\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thesomervilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ots_9_27_17_web.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4339,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4339","url_meta":{"origin":4607,"position":4},"title":"CAWC Creative Conversations: Xi Chuan, Goodman, and Farrell","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"December 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/hAG-gjQS4Zw As part of the conference last month of the China Australia Writing Centre, run by Fudan and Curtin University, I moderated a Creative Conversations discussion between Eleanor Goodman, Michael Farrell, and Xi Chuan, at the Zhida bookstore in Shanghai. Take a look!","rel":"","context":"In "Videos"","block_context":{"text":"Videos","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/hAG-gjQS4Zw\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4573,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4573","url_meta":{"origin":4607,"position":5},"title":"Introduction to Chinese Poetry in Translation in SupChina","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"June 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"An introduction to Chinese poetry in translation: Five anthologies As part of SupChina's feature on poetry last month, translator Dave Haysom selected five books to introduce Chinese poetry in English translation: Chinese Poetic Writing\u00a0by Fran\u00e7ois Cheng (translated by Donald A. Riggs & Jerome P. Seaton), The New Directions Anthology of\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\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607"}],"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=4607"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4610,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607\/revisions\/4610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}