Description
Poetry. Asian Studies. Translated by Yunte Huang. Bilingual Edition. Shortlisted for the American Literary Translators Association's Lucien Stryk Prize. Che Qianzi is a poet incarnate with the ancient soul of China's immortals. Here are his most ecstatic, restless, and seriously playful poems, in luminous new translations by Yunte Huang. NO POETRY represents the largest selection of Che's poetry available to English readers in a bilingual edition, capturing the exuberance and vitality of this visionary poet from the streets of Suzhou.
"Che Qianzi's poems are hilariously understated acts of sabotage. Hence, 'No Poetry.' Inclinations toward descriptions and syllogism stutter into nugatory notes 'that flow out of hell' or are abandoned, wisdom statements ('Staying awake to the truth') are severed at the root, and slogans rendered as self-cannibalizing knock-offs. A kingdom of creatures—chickens, ants, spiders, crows, roosters, a horse peering through its right eye with its left eye, etcetera—address 'the pain of being human.' Ironically, Che Qianzi's poems are not what they seem because everything in Che's poems is just what it is."—Forrest Gander
Author Bio
Yunte Huang is a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Tong Tin Sun Chair Professor of English at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. A Guggenheim fellow, he is the author of Charlie Chan, Inseparable, Transpacific Imaginations, among other books.
Author City: SANTA BARBARA, CA USA
Born Gu Pan in Suzhou, China, Che Qianzi is a poet, painter, and prolific essayist in the great tradition of Chinese polymaths. Steeped in Chinese classics, unbound and irrepressible, he represents the avant-garde, experimental spirit of contemporary Chinese poetry, while channeling styles of far earlier times. Che has published over twenty volumes of poetry, essays, and art monographs, along with mounting solo exhibits of his work. He divides his residence between his hometown and Beijing.
Author City: BEIJING CHI