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| Category: |
Poetry |
Publisher: |
LuLu.com |
ISBN-10: |
0557128617 |
Type: |
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| Pages: |
141 |
Copyright: |
Sep., 2009 |
ISBN-13: |
9780557128617
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Fiction |
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Sha Yan tried to express himself in a free-verse tone with his contemporary yet classical images and themes. He is exelled with the English poetry incorporated with Chinese touch. His fine craft ranging from office environment to scenes you can see on the street and the Internet chatrooms. By applying an unique style and poignant contrasts in poetry creation, this colletion stimulates tastes and interesting thoughts in the poet's plain English words. "Chinese Incarnation" sets the scene here in North America and it is a collection recommended to read. Sha Yan applied English style of rythm, image making and theme in his poetry collection, "Chinese Incarnation". He tried to express himself in this collection a free spirited man, and in turn he succeeded such and created his unique free verse in a deep and thought-provoking tone. The collection is his second poetry collection.
Excerpt
Dough hill
There is this dough hill
I climbed it after I went to a country style restaurant
French fries with some vinegar, pea soup
It is good to eat with Pepsi
Dough hill
When I climb it
I think of bread, dough specifically
Then I sit down on the mountain to write stories
Sleigh, slang, rhythm
Dough’s rein is strange
It is quite straight most of the time
And when it fails, dough is nervous
Dough hill
One I like to climb all the time
When I have free time
And when I feel like to eat
Strictly what is dough hill
No one knows except dough
He is a man, and especially when he feels like to eat
And his rein, his rein always breaks in the sky
Sainted boy doesn’t dance
One, two, three
Identical to up, down, high
Sainted boy doesn’t dance
He simply read the Bible and
Running to the woods with a delight
Sainted boy doesn’t dance
He sleighs with a delinquent smile
He challenges those fellows in the church
He doesn’t have much money
But it doesn’t affect he will grow big
Sainted boy doesn’t dance
It is wild out there
People tend to run in their own way
Bt sainted boy, sainted boy
He is a good boy
Sainted boy doesn’t dance
It is this Tuesday afternoon
He is like usual
Watching a video called “Eastern Promises”
And he tends to lead the way
About little
I bought a little scarlet red candle
And a little penguin clay candleholder
Set it burning, little lit
Faint light, sparkles in this little day
Little spirit
Flawless throughout the little day
About little, very little
That little job interview didn’t go very bad
Little job, little sprawl
Very little fine wine
Signifies the little red candle
Little flesh and blood
Very little, this little
Feeling little, like a little grass
That is too little
And thought, it will be a little
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Paperback
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Professional Reviews
Review for China Tower
Sha Yan shares more closely in a tradition more recent than this book’s title would suggest. His attention to sound and love of consonance speaks to the language poets—although it is unclear as to whether that kinship is intentional or not.
Yan is the author of two previous volumes, Yuan’s Place and Imminent Ferns, and he writes in both Chinese and English. In this collection, the poet, currently a resident of Canada, takes a number of everyday places and situations and strives to wring from them a greater resonance. He sees children playing, enjoys a cup of coffee, witnesses autumn. Unfortunately, the majority of the poems add up to little more than their situations and an urge for the reader to be attentive and to enjoy life. These messages are worthy enough, but offer little that is new.
Yan does use words in new ways: swash, sleigh, dough, and other words repeat throughout the book, but the way that readers are meant to understand the words is unclear. For instance, in “Key, key in the ray,” Yan writes, “Key, key in the ray / Sleigh, in the adjacent desert spirit / Key is not a lie / And ray is written, may.” Meaning eludes, but what is clear is the enjoyment of sound—the assonance of the long a sound in contrast to the hard k. Unfortunately, without meaning, the sound ultimately becomes a pleasurable pattern but little more. “Sleigh” is reused repeatedly and sometimes with great potential. In “Sleigh in the Ash” the very title creates a provocative image and one need not work hard to imagine blades sluicing through ash and ember, but the poet never arrives at the image. He never actually explores or broadens the idea.
Often, the poems suffer from that lack of curiosity and depth. Poems remain one dimensional and explanatory if they have meaning at all.
The poet also largely disdains punctuation, and his lines lack intention. They break without attention to meaning or nuance, and the book lacks a cohesive idea or practice to connect it. Still, Yan does show occasional moments of loveliness. In “Merry Lover’s Grace,” for example, he writes, “Light up a cigarette, / Let the thin memory, / Supplementing the floating smoke / Rise up slow.” In this brief moment, the metaphor of the diaphanous smoke works well with the idea of a reluctant memory rising to the surface. In moments like these, Yan achieves his self-proclaimed status as a poet.
Camille-Yvette Welsch at Clarion Foreword Review
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