A Tower Built Downwards
Bloodaxe Books Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-78037-643-1 (ISBN)
Before and since his enforced exile from 1989, Yang Lian has been one of the most innovative and influential poets from China. Widely hailed in America and Europe as a highly individual voice in world literature, he has been translated into many languages. A Tower Built Downwards is the latest instalment of his poetry, written between 2019 and 2022. The different sections – short poems, sequences, and one long poem – form a single comprehensive statement of Yang’s recent explorations. It is rooted in his living experience of the historical retrogression of Hong Kong, the disaster of Covid-19, the global spiritual crisis, as well as his personal sadness at events such as his father’s death.
The creativity of the writing faces – is even excited by – the depth of the challenges of reality. The long title-poem in seven parts is a spiritual journey travelling back in time, completed back in the now, building up into 'a reincarnation within one', as endless time is transformed into multilayered poetical space, in Ai Weiwei’s words: 'This intellectual tower… [turns] the unsurpassable puzzles intermingled with life and death into an in-depth exploration of human emotion.'
Ai Weiwei's innovative cover image featuring CCTV cameras and chains made of gold stretches around the whole book, across French flaps and then continues inside the front and back covers of the book, becoming an extraordinary metaphor for the book’s content.
Yang Lian was one of the original Misty Poets who reacted against the strictures of the Cultural Revolution. Born in Switzerland, the son of a diplomat, he grew up in Beijing and began writing when he was sent to the countryside in the 1970s. On his return he joined the influential literary magazine Jintian (Today). His work was criticised in China in 1983 and formally banned in 1989 when he organised memorial services for the dead of Tiananmen while in New Zealand. He was a Chinese poet in exile from 1989 to 1995, finally settling in London in 1997, also living for some periods in Berlin. Translations of his poetry include five collections with Bloodaxe, Where the Sea Stands Still (1999), Concentric Circles (2005), Lee Valley Poems (2009), Narrative Poem (2017) and A Tower Built Downwards (2023), as well as his long poem Yi (Green Integer, USA, 2002), Anniversary Snow (Shearsman, 2019), and Riding Pisces: Poems from Five Collections (Shearsman, 2008), a compilation of earlier work. He is co-editor with W.N. Herbert of Jade Ladder: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 2012), and was awarded the International Nonino Prize in 2012. Both Where the Sea Stands Still and Narrative Poem are Poetry Book Society Recommended Translations.
9 Acknowledgements
11 Introduction by Ai Weiwei
一，短诗 SHORT POEMS
根
17 Root
致身边消失的陌生人——给武汉
19 To the Vanished Stranger Beside Us: Written for Wuhan
死海
20 Dead Sea
青草祭
22 Green Grass Offering
虚构·2020
24 Fiction 2020
魇·2020
25 Nightmares 2020
瘟疫实验室 （一——三）
28 Plague Laboratory （1-3）
一只名叫“希望”的瓮
31 An Urn Called ‘Hope’
奥威尔的新年
32 Orwellian New Year
奥维德的泉水
34Ovid’s Spring Water
落：肖像
35 Falling: A Portrait
2019年12月19月: 冬至和诗
37 19th December 2019: A Response Poem of the Winter Solstice
柏林安哈尔特火车站大门
39 Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof Main Gate
树林中的铁轨
41 Railway Tracks in the Woods
音乐会上的狐狸幽灵
43 Phantom Foxes at a Concert
羽毛·石头
45 Feather – Stone
石头·羽毛
46 Stone – Feather
“金沙，请听二十秒钟雨声”
47 ‘Jinsha, Please Listen to 20 Seconds of Rain’
在上博撫摸一只西周编钟
49 Touching a Set of Western Zhou Dynasty Bells in Shanghai Museum
听溥雪斋弹《梅花三弄》
50 Listening to Pu Xuezhai Playing Three Plum Blossom Airs
溆浦美人夜歌
52 Xupu Beauty Nocturne
星期一，以西湖为背景
54 Monday, with West Lake for a Backdrop
邋遢大士九十歌
56 Messmaster 90 Song
海上家书
58 Letter Home from at Sea
病毒隔离中的生日华尔兹（一——五）
60 Birthday Waltz in Virus Isolation (1-5)
名字的诞生
63 Birth of a Name
汕大，封存的家书
65 Shantou University: A Sealed Letter Home
绚丽的不可解封之诗
66 Magnificent Nonblockable Poem
听茶 （一）
68 Hear Tea (1)
听茶 （二）
69 Hear Tea (2)
念湖
70 Lake Longing
白千层
72 A Thousand White Layers
御花园·零与夜
73 Imperial Garden. Zero and Night
御花园·孔雀
74Imperial Garden. Peacock
御花园·牡蛎
75 Imperial Garden. Oyster
御花园·铜舟
76 Imperial Garden. Bronze Boat
御花园·墨乐
77 Imperial Garden. Music of Ink
御花园·来德之风
78 Imperial Garden. Laide’s Wind
御花园·玉圭
79 Imperial Garden. Jade Tablet
御花园·石器时代
80 Imperial Garden. Stone Age
御花园·最后的
81 Imperial Garden. Final
罪恶研究
82 Researching Evil
反安魂曲
86 Anti-requiem
二，组诗 SEQUENCES
轮回·灵骨塔（98行）
91 Reincarnation – Stupa (98 Lines)
倒退的历史诗
95 Poems on Turning Back History
韩退之中元节，或从四面八方坍塌到我们头上的时光
98 Han (Retreater) Yu’s Hungry Ghost Day
Or, Time That Collapses onto Our Heads from All Sides
高福里中元节，上海背影之歌
102 Hungry Ghost Day at South Gate
Or, A Song of the Back View of Shanghai
鹤乡
107 Crane Land
大夫，我是你身边一滴水
111 Master, I’m a Drop of Water by Your Side
三，长诗 LONG POEMS
一座向下修建的塔
119 A Tower Built Downwards
迷宫
137 Labyrinth
奥威尔的新年（诗剧版本）
151 Orwell’s New Year – A Verse Drama
| Erscheinungsdatum | 10.05.2023 |
|---|---|
| Übersetzer | Brian Holton |
| Verlagsort | Tyne and Wear |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 156 x 234 mm |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Lyrik / Gedichte |
| ISBN-10 | 1-78037-643-X / 178037643X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-78037-643-1 / 9781780376431 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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