Old Snow: Poetry
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Book Overview
The three sections of Bei Dao's affecting new book of poems, Old Snow --"Berlin," "Oslo," "Stockholm"--are poignant reminders of the restless and rootless life of the exile. All the poems in the present bilingual volume were written post-Tiananmen Square (June 4, 1989), and the poet refers back to this watershed both overtly ("Not your bodies but your souls/ shall share a common birthday') and in dense images of loss and betrayal ("old snow comes constantly, new snow comes not at all/ the art of creation is lost"). As renowned China scholar, Jonathan Spence commented on Bei Dao's earlier book, The August Sleepwalker : "The poet was obliged to create a new poetic idiom that was simultaneously a protective camouflage and an appropriate vehicle for 'unreality.'" Bonnie S. McDougall, whose translations of Bei Dao have been called "a major achievement in themselves," is Professor of Chinese at the University of Edinburgh. Working with Chinese writer in exile Chen Maiping (now residing in Oslo), she once again renders Bei Dao's poems into fluid and musical English.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0811211827
ISBN13:9780811211826
Release Date:November 1991
Publisher:New Directions Publishing Corporation
Length:81 Pages
Weight:0.50 lbs.
Dimensions:0.5" x 5.7" x 8.3"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Masterpiece of a Modern Poet
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
Even in translation Bei Dao's poetry has a dark and quiet strength to it. The poems have a life about them, so that you could read them once and get one thing out of it and then read it again and get another. His style, even when dealing with politics, doesn't try to force its point. Rather, it slowly sinks in-- in a matter-of-fact way. When I read a book of poetry I tend to dog-ear the pages of poems that strike me in a special way. By the time I was done with this one almost the entire book was marked. The style of poetry is especially clean, yet has the flare of spontaneity. Bei Dao's poems are especially interesting to me as a poet, because the language of Chinese poetry exiled out of China tends to be one of his primary concerns. This is a book highly worth reading-- and reading again.
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