Influenced by both the "gray, sinister sea" near the village where Yi Lu grew up during the Cultural Revolution, and the beauty of the sea in the books she read as a child, Sea Summit is a collection of paradox and questioning. The sea is an impossible force to the poet: it is both a majestic force that predates man, and something to carry with us wherever we go, to be put "by an ancient rattan chair," so we can watch "its waves toss" from above. Exploring the current ecological crisis and our complicated relationship to the wildness around us, Yi Lu finds something more complex than a traditional nature poet might in the mysterious connection between herself and the forces of nature represented by the boundless ocean. Translated brilliantly by the acclaimed poet Fiona Sze-Lorrain, this collection of poems introduces an important contemporary Chinese poet to English-language readers.
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Praise for Sea Summit "Slippery, resonant poetry full of nuanced and subtle scene-making. Sea Summit makes a strong case for Yi's poetic importance beyond her linguistic and national borders."--Wayne Miller "Yi enters the 'gigantic network' of nature, the 'rowdy conference room' of the sea summit, and they, in turn, pass through her, resulting in poems of particular intensity, mystery, and transaction. This is the visionary potential of ecopoetry: a practice that invites the presence of wind, butterfly, storm to meet and disrupt us, just as they disrupt and interrupt each other and the rest of the world."--Melissa Kwasny "This communal and visceral experience reminds me of the theatre... Yi Lu's images are masterful in a way that, perhaps, only a theatre scenographer might envision. They reflect, support, and converse with the condition of the speaker. And, like curtains, these private experiences are torn open in a theater where there is no fourth wall; as we read, we're immersed in each scene, each poem, via the stage that is Yi Lu's sensitive and poignant poetry."--The Literary Review "The poetry sings and pulses with life--the unconquerable spirit of the world shown in imagistic flashes of elegance."--Heavy Feather Review
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781571314765
Publisert
2016-03-24
Utgiver
Vendor
Milkweed Editions
Vekt
311 gr
Høyde
215 mm
Bredde
139 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
208

Forfatter
Oversetter

Om bidragsyterne

Yi Lu is a theater scenographer who leads a parallel life as a poet. Born in 1956, she is the author of five books of poetry, including the award-winning titles, See (2004) and Using Two Seas (2009). Her fifth volume, Forever Lingering (2011), was published by Culture and Art Press in Beijing. Yi is known for her elegant and distilled lyrical voice, as well as her ecological awareness. Her honors include the Hundred Flowers Award for Literature and other distinguished literary prizes from Fujian province. A theatrical stage and set designer at the People's Art Theatre in Fujian, she lives in the southern coastal city of Fuzhou. Fiona Sze-Lorrain writes and translates in English, French, and Chinese. Her new poetry collection, The Ruined Elegance (2016), is published by Princeton University Press in the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets. The author of two previous titles, My Funeral Gondola (2013) and Water the Moon (2010), as well as several translations of contemporary Chinese, French, and American poets, she is a zheng harpist and an editor at Vif Editions. She lives in Paris, France. Melissa Kwasny is the author of five books of poems, including, most recently, Pictograph (2015), The Nine Senses (2011), and Reading Novalis in Montana (2009), all from Milkweed Editions. Her book of essays, Earth Recitals: Essays on Image and Vision, was published by Lynx House Press in 2013. She lives in the Elkhorn Mountains of western Montana.