{"id":674,"date":"2012-01-30T10:43:21","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T02:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=674"},"modified":"2012-01-30T10:43:21","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T02:43:21","slug":"encyclopedia-of-contemporary-chinese-culture-on-xi-chuan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=674","title":{"rendered":"Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture on Xi Chuan"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple months ago I linked <\/a>to the Xi Chuan Wikipedia page in German, and mentioned that no one had written a Wikipedia entry for him in English. I also linked to the\u00a0Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture<\/a> entry on him, written by poet \/ translator \/ scholar Huang Yibing<\/a> \u9ec3\u4ea6\u5175 (a\/k\/a Mai Mang \u9ea6\u8292), but I’ll take the opportunity now to quote it: mentioning the difference between Xi Chuan’s styles before and after 1989, Huang writes that since the ’90s he has<\/p>\n

experiment[ed] with various hybrid forms of prose and poetry to convey what he now calls a \u2018pseudo-philosophy\u2019 (wei zhexue), inquiring into the absurdities and previously overlooked dark shadows of history, human consciousness and reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is right, but the passage also stands as a testament to how quickly things change in the life of a living poet. Huang’s entry was only written a few years ago, but since I’ve known Xi Chuan (we first met in the spring of 2006), I can’t think of a single time he’s mentioned the phrase “pseudo-philosophy” \u4e3a\u54f2\u5b66. At the public discussion at the MLA (see Rachel Blau DuPlessis<\/a>‘s great write-up here<\/a>) he mentioned that he was no longer interested in writing normatively “good” poems, and I’ve often heard him speak about the oxymoron and its potential and importance for Chinese poetry today (see versions of this discussion in English here <\/a>and here<\/a>), but “pseudo-philosophy” is a trope I think he’s left behind. Actually, looking at his most recent work, I get the sense that he’s more interested in producing texts with real, not pseudo-, philosophical value. I hope you see what I mean when Notes on the Mosquito<\/em> <\/a>is published in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple months ago I linked to the Xi Chuan Wikipedia page in German, and mentioned that no one had written a Wikipedia entry for him in English. I also linked to the\u00a0Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture entry on him, … 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":[3,16,7],"tags":[340,230,341,269,339,1654],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-aS","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":452,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=452","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":0},"title":"more Xi Chuan in German","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"December 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The next--and perhaps final--installment of news on Xi Chuan in German is the Xi Chuan German Wikipedia page. It's rather spare, but it's the only entry in a Western language, and it's longer than the Chinese listing. For an online encyclopedia entry on Xi Chuan in English, try the Encyclopedia\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":175,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=175","url_meta":{"origin":674,"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":372,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=372","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":2},"title":"Chinese Names in Push Open the Window","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"When I first wrote about the Copper Canyon anthology Push Open the Window, I said, \"My only quibble with the book so far is that, while everything is printed with Chinese and English en face, for some reason the Chinese characters of none of the poets\u2019 names made it into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthologies"","block_context":{"text":"Anthologies","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3125,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3125","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":3},"title":"A New Golden Age for Chinese Poetry?","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"April 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"PRI has published an article on the thriving contemporary Chinese poetry scene. Here's a taste: As in other spheres, the Internet has proven a huge democratizing force in the world of Chinese poetry, leveling the playing field for migrant workers and millionaires alike. But love of verse was already there.\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":3490,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3490","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":4},"title":"Turner on Ouyang Jianghe","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Ouyang Jianghe \u6b27\u9633\u6c5f\u6cb3 gave a reading at the China Institute on May 7th, moderated by Yibing Huang (poet Mai Mang \u9ea6\u8292). Here's Matt Turner's write-up of the event: BUILDING POETRY WITH MATERIAL Poet Ouyang Jianghe gave a poetry reading at the China Institute in New York, followed by a discussion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"image3","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/image3-e1462804351846-768x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4043,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4043","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":5},"title":"October Dedications by Mang Ke","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"April 30, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Announcing October Dedications, the selected poems of Mang Ke \u8292\u514b, edited and translated by Lucas Klein, with further translations by Huang Yibing and Jonathan Stalling\u2014part of the Jintian series jointly published by Zephyr and The Chinese University Press. Mang Ke (b. 1950, penname of Jiang Shiwei \u59dc\u4e16\u4f1f) began writing poetry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Publications"","block_context":{"text":"Publications","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chineseupress.com\/image\/cache\/data\/books\/initial\/9789629965501-500x730.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674"}],"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=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":675,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions\/675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}