Description
Book SynopsisBefore 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.
Trade ReviewThose lonely Tang dynasty poets may be Yang’s original blues brothers, but he’s as much a modernist and symbolist in the vein of Mallarmé or Rimbaud […] Yang Lian’s work is rooted not in geography but in his own imagination […] to exist in Yang’s lines can be a gorgeous but frustrating adventure. -- Tim Kindseth * Time Magazine *
Repressive regimes tend to have little problem acknowledging poets’ power to shape our opinions and our world. Some of those they exile settle in Britain. Yang Lian, a leading member of China’s Tiananmen generation, has just published his autobiographical masterpiece Narrative Poem in translation… A kind of wild lyricism marks the work… a sense of the explosive urgency of writing itself. -- Fiona Sampson * The i Paper *
Yang Lian is one of the most ambitious poets writing in Chinese today – indeed, one of the most ambitious poets writing in any language… Narrative Poem represents a stunning achievement of both poet and translator, bringing the two together almost as one. -- Lucas Klein * Translation and Literature *
Table of Contents9 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 34 Ovid’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 74 Imperial 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
