Mirror: Poems by Zhang Zao(Jintian)

This posthumous collection is a detailed, retrospective look at one of the more brilliant poetic minds of the twenty-first century, and includes an introduction by Bai Hua and afterword by Bei Dao. A dark humor vivifies Zhang Zao's later work as he eroticizes the harrowing: doubt, finality, and then nothingness. The choice of these poems is retrospective: "Mirror," one of his earliest and best known works starts the collection, while "Lantern Town" was written less than two months before his death. Elegy a letter opens and someone says it's getting cold another letter opens it is empty, empty yet heavier than the world a letter opens someone says he is singing from a mountain height someone says no, even if the potato was dead the inertia alive in it would still grow tiny hands another letter opens you sleep like a tangerine but after peeling off your nudity someone says he has touched another you another letter opens they are all laughing everything around explodes into laughter a letter opens clouds and water run wild outside a letter opens I am chewing a certain darkness another letter opens high moon in the sky another letter opens and shouts death is something real Translator Fiona Sze-Lorrain co-edited the Manoa anthologies, Sky Lanterns (2012) and On Freedom: Spirit, Art, and State (2013), and is the translator of three previous Jintian titles, including Lan Lan's Canyon in the Body and Wind Says by Bai Hua.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: After the Epic Voice by Fiona Sze-Lorrain Preface Poetics of a Mirror Bai Hua Mirror Who Art Thou* Autumn Drama* Late Autumn Story The Blissful Corduroy Dance* The Prince of Chu Dreamed of Rain Early Spring, February Metaphor of Death Memories of Mount Lu Cloud Sky Fly* Love and Death of a German Spy in the England of a Sweet Nightingale* [a lyric sequence] 1. [No butter. War chews on moldy crusts] 2. [Sweet nightingale. Keats’ nightingale withdraws into dawn] 3. [I ask, Who are you…. That is, how did you] 4. [He sings, the singing drunkard walks past] 5. [Guard mounting on Wednesdays. Under the window the drunkard walks past] 6. [Sweet nightingale. We close our eyes and wait] Schermanski the German Soldier’s Death Sentence Chairs Sit into Winter… Kafka to Felice* [a sequence of sonnets] 1. [My name is Kafka, if you recall] 2. [Snowy night of Prague, from scissoring alleys] 3. [Yet fatal is the breakthrough. Highest] 4 4. [O night, you are always less than night] 5. [When can men see themselves] 6. [Reading is murder; I dislike] 7. [A sudden stroll: blood that spurs me on] 8. [Autumn soon, and soon I will] 9. [Men gaze at it for long, so what] Umbrella Midnight Bread Elegy Talisman* The Lark This Year Grandfather* At Thirty* Dialogue with Tsvetaeva [a sequence of sonnets] 1. [My black eyes smile at you with affection] 2. [Every day I dream of Eternal Laments. Clouds drifting] 3. [… as usual, I bury my head in the empty cup] 4. [Our eyelashes — why do they leap in foreign land] 5. [Sunlight is a wolf from time to time, sauntering] 6. [Cherries, a scarlet red, as if waiting for someone to return] 7. [Back in Moscow, you suffer a cold rebuff] 8. [Dawn in the east. A scene filled with static comes to an end] 9. [People can’t explain everything around them] 10. [Taking off my glasses, I wish to translate for the deaf and the mute] 11. [… yes, Your Honor, the moon surges] 12. [Will there really be a September goodbye] Nightview, New York Chef Homeland* A Key Dedicated to C. R. Grandmother In the Forest West Lake Dream Clouds* [a lyric sequence] 1. [When I, with a skull heaped with sky-blue mushrooms] 5 2. [A leaf. This universe stretches its tongue into] 3. [Where are we? Beyond miles] 4. [You are turning two today; mermaids leap from out of nowhere] 5. [… mirages fade. Desktop, the ruins of elves] 6. [Over the horizon, nurses are bustling] 7. [You pick up a cub, when the tiger] 8. [You are turning two today ; when you awake] Long, Long Ago Letters in Four Seasons Look, Brother, These Empty Bottles… Verge Song of Earth* Off to Jiangnan* World Song of a Wall Driller and the Ultimate Ear* Drunken Song Adieu Schloss Solitude Father Sitting Listlessly* A Wildly Noble Glass of Water* High Window On the Pacific Ocean, A Small Island Country Lord Xiang* The Invisible Opium War* Lantern Town Afterword by Bei Dao Notes Bibliography

About the Author :
Zhang Zao: Began writing in the early 1980s, inspired by the so-called “obscure” ("Misty") poets who emerged after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, but determined to go beyond these writers in terms of his experimentation with language. He eventually developed a style that blended Eastern and Western influences. He moved to German in 1986 where he worked as a recognized literary critic, translator and scholar of German literature and philosophy. He died in 2010 at the age of 48. Fiona Sze-Lorrain: Writes and translates in French, English, and Chinese. Her recent work includes "My Funeral Gondola" (published as a Mãnoa Books title from El León Literary Arts in 2013), and "Water the Moon" (Marick Press, 2010). Co-director of Vif editions and one of the editors at Cerise Press, she is also a zheng concertist. Her translation of "I Could Almost See the Clouds of Dust," by Yu Xiang (Zephyr 2013) was long-listed for the 2013 PEN Poetry in Translation Award. She has translated two other Zephyr titles: "Canyon in the Body," by Lan Lan, and "Wind Says," by Bai Hua. Bei Dao: Bei Dao is considered one of China's most important writers. He is the most notable member of the "Misty Poets" and co-founded and co-edited "Jintian" ("Today") magazine. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. Bai Hua: The central figure of the post-"Misty" poets, Bai Hua is one of the most influential of contemporary Chinese poets. His book "Wind Says," translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, was published by Zephyr in 2012.