Notes of a Blissful Ghost
Notes of a Blissful Ghost
By Yang Lian
Translated by Brian Holton
2002
160 pages
ISBN 962-7255-25-4
Yang Lian burst on the Chinese poetry scene in the late 1970s as a member of the Today group. The political storms of the last two decades have turned him into a writer in exile.
Yang exploits this condition of exile to probe our human and linguistic predicaments. This leads to a continuous reinvention of the poet's self and his chosen form of expression. In Yang's own words, he is always 'crossing boundaries and scaling walls'.
This volume traces Yang's poetic career from 1982 to 2001. It is the most comprehensive and representative collection of Yang's work to date.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Poetry and Exile By Yang Lian Translated by Eva Hung — 9
Translating Transgression By Brian Holton — 11
The Landscape in the Room — 26
Sky Burial — 23
The Landscape in the Room — 24
Mirror — 25
The Last Room in Goya’s Life — 26
A Girl Remembered — 28
The Dead in Exile — 29
1989 — 31
The Book of Exile — 32
Banned Poem — 33
The Dead in Exile — 34
The City in Imagination — 37
The Garden on a Winter’s Day — 39
Grafton Bridge — 42
War Memorial — 43
The Lying Game — 44
Cruel Children — 45
Mother — 46
The Foundations of Terror — 47
A Castle on Paper — 48
Survivors — 49
Incident — 50
CV of Hate — 51
Blood Orange — 52
Absolute Question — 53
Summer’s One and Only Harbour — 54
The Non-Personal Snow — 55
Darknesses — 63
Darknesses — 65
House like Shadow — 69
The Composer’s Tower — 70
Stone on the Windowsill — 73
Violence in the Forest — 74
A Portrait’s Life — 75
Biography — 76
Pomegranates Denied — 83
Purple — 85
Absence — 86
Perpendicular to the Paper — 87
Bird Book — 88
Snake Tree — 89
Harvest — 92
The Simplest Thing — 93
University — 94
Glassblower — 95
Butterfly of Revenge — 96
Brecht’s Last Question — 97
Where the Sea Stands Still — 99
Sixteeners — 113
London — 115
Water’s Return Journey — 116
A Night in the Tower — 117
Lento for the Sea — 118
Sunset and Cold at Buchenwald — 119
The Bright Ming Dynasty — 120
Bodhi Tree — 121
Form — 122
Mediterranean — 123
Light — 124
Longhua Temple — 125
Room by the Estuary — 126
10 Years — 127
12 Storkwinkel, Berlin — 128
A Zurich Swan — 129
Still — 130
Them (feminine plural) — 131
Entrance — 132
Shadow Play — 133
Father’s Blue & White Porcelain — 134
The Garden on You — 135
Retold Space — 136
The Time That’s Left — 137
Notes of a Blissful Ghost — 139
A List of Works by Yang Lian — 159
Review(s)
Review(s)
'… the job of translating [Yang Lian] is a Herculean—some might say Sisyphean—task requiring sensitivity, skill and sheer doggedness … Holton, who has translated Yang's works since 1992, delivers all three, plus a vivid poetic sense of his own.'
—South China Morning Post
'Holton, who has worked closely with Yang, has rightly translated more than "just" meaning: "I continually try to discipline myself against writing elegant open lines where the original is cramped and dense".'
—Pacific Affairs
-
AUTHOR(s)
Yang Lian was awarded the Italian Flaiano International Prize for Poetry in 1999. His collection of poems Where the Sea Stands Still (1999) was recommended for an English translation prize by the British Poetry Association.
-
TRANSLATOR(s)
Brian Holton, the translator, has worked closely with Yang Lian since 1992. He is currently Assistant Professor of the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.