Click here to buy this book! Amazon Lulu Category:  Poetry Publisher: LuLu.com ISBN-10:  0557128617 Type: Fiction Pages: 141 Copyright: Sep., 2009 ISBN-13: 9780557128617 China Tower hard cover is back alive. 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

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