AN AMERICAN POET IN CHINA

See here for a free anthology from the NEA: FREE

AN AMERICAN POET IN CHINA

I was blog-roll diving the other day over at China Rises and saw a listing for An American Poet in China. Now that peaked my interest! I opened the site in another tab, and then another and once more just to be sure: I was looking at my own site.

I am not sure what prompted Tim to label the link as such, but I am grateful. Of all the salutations or titles that I have proudly worn, or have had foisted on me, poet and teacher are the two I most cherish.

Google did not fail me as I went on a hunt for an American Poet in China: I found Tony Barnstone, once an English teacher in China and now Professor of English at Whittier College (Nixon’s Alma Mater) His books include Sad Jazz: Sonnets; Impure: Poems by Tony Barnstone; The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry; Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry; Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei; The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters; and the textbooks Literatures of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Literatures of Asia, and Literatures of the Middle East. Born in Middletown, Connecticut, and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, Barnstone lived for years in Greece, Spain, Kenya and China before taking his Masters in English and Creative Writing and Ph.D. in English Literature at U.C. Berkeley. You can find his work here: Barnstone

You see? There is life after ESL teaching.

And I came across an old acquaintance Li-Young Lee: He was born in 1957 in Jakarta, Indonesia, of Chinese parents. His father, who was a personal physician to Mao Zedong (His book, banned in China, is The Private Life of Mao Zedong) while in China, after being released from imprisonment in a leper colony following Mao’s death he relocated his family to Indonesia, where he helped found Gamaliel University. In 1959 the Lee family fled the country to escape anti-Chinese sentiment and after a five-year trek through Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan, they settled in the United States in 1964.

He is the author of Book of My Nights (BOA Editions, 2001); The City in Which I Love You (1991), which was the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and Rose (1986), which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award; as well as a memoir entitled The Winged Seed: A Remembrance (Simon and Schuster, 1995), which received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. His other honors include a Lannan Literary Award, a Whiting Writer’s Award, grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. He lives in Chicago, Illinois, with his wife, Donna, and their two sons.

He is one of the most passionate writers in America. Many of my phone calls and visits with Li-Young Lee left me believing that I was indeed talking to someone who was hard-wired to a spiritual reality that he successfully struggled to make sense of in his work. I once asked fellow poets at Vermont College to describe him and every single poet, man or woman, called him “beautiful”. A few of his poems are here: LEE

And to my great surprise I found my name. In March of this year the National Endowment for the Arts in America published a retrospective of their last forty years of support and development of Literature in America here. My name was there along with Alice Walker, Issac Bashevis Singer, Eudora Welty and Li-Young Lee. All of us, and hundreds more in the last 40 years, were once (in some cases twice) given $20,000 fellowships to support our work. For me, it was at once, the most humbling and affirming moment of my life.

The NEA was embroiled in controversy the year I won my fellowship. Attacks by Senator Jesse Helms and many others, following the famed “Piss Christ” piece, ended many NEA programs. The literature program survived because it was a blind selection process: Only 2% of applicant writers that year, individuals who had already published a required minimum of 20 poems in 5 national magazines or journals, were further encouraged to create via the awards by a distinguished panel of American editors and writers. Most of us are now academics and a few of the thirty chosen that year have gone on to great celebrity.

I have a book finished, but I am not sure it is ready yet. For a poet, it never really is ready. And if I were to have listened to that inner voice of doubt I would never have published anything. I will let you know soon that I am OK with its imperfections.

In the meantime here is a FREE anthology by past and present grant winners. I think you will enjoy it. And lastly, here is a link to a brilliant writer/translator of Chinese literature (and past NEA Fellow) David Hinton. Enjoy!

I am not sure how to thank you Tim. But, I will do my best by devoting more time to creative writing.

Cartoon, copyright Cagle.com

Posted 10 March, 2007 in Chinese Poetry, 中国, Personal Notes, American Poet in China, China Cartoons, Poetry, Asia

6 comments to “AN AMERICAN POET IN CHINA”

tattoos tats » aN AMERICAN POET, March 10th, 2007 at 5:20 am:

  • […] Original post by admin […]

Dag Selander, March 10th, 2007 at 11:49 am:

  • What am I to say, Lonnie!? With no words in Chenglish or Swinglish I’m saying what my heart is filled by (in Swedish):

    Så underbart, Lonnie, att du nu intar en ny position. Och som du vet är Nobelpriskommittén och dess utdelande förlagt till Sverige. Välkommen till Stockholm för att motta priset ur kung Carl XVI Gustafs hand! Ja, varför inte?

    //Dag

Feng37, March 10th, 2007 at 2:04 pm:

Josh, March 10th, 2007 at 2:05 pm:

  • I’m impressed with how productive Benjamin is.

China Law Blog, March 10th, 2007 at 3:47 pm:

  • Impressive! Very Impressive!

admin, March 11th, 2007 at 2:49 am:

  • Thanks Dag…I have had the chance to shake the hand of 3 Literature Laureates, but I think the King and I will likely not meet…sigh…I am up for a beer in a poetry cafe with you there anytime!!

    Feng, I searched my inbox and I no knowing….I have been travelling a lot….And I lost yet ANOTHER phone…Let’s head for the Irish Pub sometime soon and plan a blogger revolution!…I have started the pdf you referenced…EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT! That is a PhD thesis!!
    I love the poetry, the analyses and the extra quotes from the likes of Milosz (One of the Laureates whose hand I was honored to shake)…Thank You!

    Josh, http://cultured.fishspeaker.com/ is on my blogroll and is a valuable, worthy read…Thanks for mentioning him again!!

    Thanks Dan…Now if only I had a profession that actually paid me….

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