Song of Shadows
By Xiao Hai
()
About this ebook
With delicacy and precision, the major Chinese poet Xiao Hai conjures shadows to explore philosophical questions of illusion and reality, history and time, art and language. Composed of several hundred interconnected poems, Xiao’s collection is, in his words, “a dynamic, creative, and open system of experience.” Deftly translated by Zhu Yu, Song of Shadows brings Wordsworth and Whitman into artful conversation with classical Chinese culture.
Available as a bilingual eBook with text in Mandarin and English, this edition is a must-read for lovers of international literature, Chinese speakers learning English, and English speakers learning Mandarin.
Xiao Hai
Xiao Hai (1965-) was born in Hai'an, in China's Jiangsu Province. At the prestigious Nanjing University, he co-founded and edited with other young poets the poetry magazine They, a publication that has fostered a number of important figures in contemporary Chinese literature such as Han Dong, Yu Jian, and Su Tong. He has authored over a dozen works of Chinese history and poetry collections, including Bending to Weed until Afternoon (2003), Villages and Fields (2006), Bei Ling River (2010), The Great Kingdom of Qin (2010), and Song of Shadows (2013). He has published widely in such influential poetry magazines as Shi Kan, Xing Xing, Qing Chun, Hua Cheng, Zhong Shan, Zuo Jia, and Jintian (edited by Bei Dao). Known as a humble poet of discrete sensibilities, he has earned widespread recognition in his home country. His prizes include the Writer's Poetry Award and two Zi Jin Mountain Literature Awards, and he was the Tian Wen Poet of 2012. Beijing Literature included his poetry on their list of the best contemporary Chinese writing in 1998. His poetry has been translated into English, French, Japanese, Spanish, and Romanian. He lives in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.
Related to Song of Shadows
Related ebooks
Song of Shadows Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Deep Zoo: Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaestro of Solitude Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Journey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLes Poemes Philosophique (Volume 1): The Voices of Existentialism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Zebra Stood in the Night Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsK Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHybrids of Plants and of Ghosts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5...is... what a Poet said: Poetry for Your Mind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMori: Kiensei, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEchoes Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Coming to My Senses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVictoriana Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTide of Shadows and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Sky to the Next Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSleeping under the Juniper Tree Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOut and Back Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiary of the Soft World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeaning Willow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVersus Verses - Imagine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReimagining In 2020: Poems: First Reflections Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Path of Loneliness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKatabatic Wind: Good Craic Fueled by Fumes from the Abyss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Name for Every Leaf: Selected Poems, 1959-2015 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBody of Work: Selected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPiercing Through the Silent Veil Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Calloused Foot Drifter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCircle / Square Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNostalgic Tendencies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBecause the Sky is a Thousand Soft Hurts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf: A New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters to a Young Poet (Rediscovered Books): With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things We Don't Talk About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Song of Shadows
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Song of Shadows - Xiao Hai
影子之歌 (节选)
小海 (朱玉 译)
Song of Shadows:
A Selection
Xiao Hai
Translated from the Chinese by Zhu Yu
Preface to the English Edition: Life and Shadow
—Xiao Hai
A long poem is the true test of a poet’s talent; it requires great planning, control, and balance—like running a marathon. Rather than a flash of inspiration, the poet needs a steady flow of creativity. For my own long poem Song of Shadows, selections of which are rendered into English by Zhu Yu, I found the necessary energy in the subject itself.
A shadow is like a centipede. When, as a child, I cut off their feet for fun, they would keep looking for what they had lost. This pursuit of relations resembles the strange and mysterious pursuit of creating poetry. My intention in writing Song of Shadows was to make a dynamic, creative, and open-ended system of experience, a combination of connections. The collection’s structure is both loose and close; one can start anywhere, and a single detail can stand in for the whole work.
Of course, poetry’s visible framework, stanzas, and syntax make up its external form, but there is also an inner rhythm that comes from a poet’s spiritual temperament. For me in these poems, shadows provide that underlying structure.
I might trace my obsession with shadows back to several verses by canonical Chinese poets: Li Bai (701-762), who gave us the illustrious lines I raise my cup and invite the moon, / becoming triple with my shadows,
and Zhang Ruoxu (660-720), to whom we owe "A Moonlit