A short report from the Simmons Chinese Poetry Conference -顾爱玲 [by Eleanor Goodman]

I’m grabbing a few seconds away from the conference to post some photos from the past two days of translation and dialogue.

 

First, the man who managed to bring together over thirty scholars and poets from the PRC, throughout the Chinese diaspora, and here in the States, for a weekend of work and fun – a happy Professor Afaa Michael Weaver.

On Friday, we arranged tables that included a Chinese poet, an American poet, and a translator to work together on translating a poem together. Here, Richard Howard, the Taiwanese poet and translator Leung Ping-Kwan 梁秉均, and Professor Michelle Yeh 奚密教授from UC Davis are discussing on Richard’s poem “Refugee”.  Witness Richard using his usual charm on Michelle.

After a welcome banquet last night, we convened again this morning at 8:30 AM to discuss what came out of the translation tables. Everyone seemed surprisingly chipper, given how little sleep many of the participants had gotten after a night of carousing...all while discussing literary topics, no doubt. In the front row are students studying Chinese at a public high school in Chicago. When I was in high school (ahem, not so long ago) the choices were French and Spanish.

 

Our second panel of the morning was on various aspects of contemporary Chinese poetry in the mainland, on Taiwan, and in the States.  Panelists were Jami Proctor-Xu from Berkeley, Wu Sijing 吴思敬 from Shoudu Shifan University in Beijing, Christopher Lupke from Washington State University who served as moderator, Horng Shuling 洪淑苓from Taiwan University in Taibei, and Jennifer Feeley from the University of Iowa. Most impressive was watching Jami Proctor-Xu translate a question from the audience into Chinese before answering it...in Chinese.

And more to come tomorrow!     —EG 顾爱玲