Description
Book SynopsisSimultaneously occupying past, present, and future, Black Stars escapes the confines of time and space, suffusing image with memory, abstraction with meaning, and darkness with abundant light. In these masterful translations, the poems sing out with the kind of wisdom that comes to those who have lived through war, traveled far, and seen a great deal. While the past may evoke village life and the present a postmodern urban world, the poems often exhibit a dual consciousness that allows the poet to reside in both at once. From the universe to the self, we see Lap's landscapes grow wider before they focus: black stars receding to dark stairways, infinity giving way to now. Lap's universe is boundless, yes, but also "just big enough / To have four directions / With just enough wind, rain, and trouble to last."
Trade Review"Here is a writer who has seen the worst and written the best. His intensity comes from a gentle tone, and his spare beauty brings us insight sweetened by introspection... All that is ugly is redeemed by his descriptive writing, poetic restraint, and ennobling experience." --Washington Independent Review of Books "Reading Ngo Tu Lap's poems, terrible nostalgia wells up in me--nostalgia for a lost time and a far-gone country, nostalgia for people I've loved, and for creatures of forests and rivers. The French called PTSD 'nostalgie.' I feel gratitude too. War is over. Peace arrives with these beautiful poems." --Maxine Hong Kingston "Underlying tensions animate these arresting poems by Ngo Tu Lap, movingly translated by Martha Collins and the author. Coinhabiting past and present, the speaker conflates absence and presence so that 'On the finger of a woman who died young / A ring still sparkles / In the depths of the black earth.' Inside this dual perspective, we, as readers, are enriched." --Arthur Sze
