Contemporary Chinese Poetry
On December 9, a large delegation of poets from Wuhan, the most populous city in central China, visited Kelly Writers House at Penn. For nearly all, this was the first visit to the U.S. These poets – Liang Biwen, Liu Yishan, Chen Ying-Song, Tiang He, Wang Xinmin, Ke Yumin, Hu Xiang & Liu An – read and then had their poetry read in English by one of a team of volunteer translators: Bob Perelman , Sarah Dowling , Michelle Taransky , Charles Bernstein , Greg Djanikian & Yanrong. Yarong is the current scholar-in-residence at the Chinese/American Association of Poetry and Poetics (CAAP). The process was then reversed, with texts by Bernstein, Dowling, Djanikian, Taransky & Perelman (“China”!) translated into Chinese.
Downloadable audio here
Complete texts in English & Chinese
In 2009, as part of its Writers Without Borders series, Writers House hosted Zhimin Li, a poet who teaches at Guangzhou University (Guangzhou is the city most Americans my age think of as Canton) & sits on the CAAP board. Li gave a reading & a talk on new Chinese poetry.
Downloadable audio of the full reading here
Downloadable audio of Li’s talk here
Text of Li’s talk – New Chinese Poetry:
The Origin & Development from the Perspective
of Cultural Exchanges between China & the West
Access to segmented poems is available
through Zhimin Li’s page on PennSound
Call for papers
First Convention of
The Chinese/American Association for Poetry & Poetics
Wuhan, China
September 28 – 30, 2011
