Wreckage - Softcover

Jin, Ha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1882413970 ISBN 13: 9781882413973

Publisher: Hanging Loose Press, 2001

Synopsis

Poetry. Asian American Studies. New poems by the author of Waiting, winner of the National Book Award. Ha Jin's writing has been called luminous and eloquent by The New York Times Book Review, extraordinary by the Chicago Sun-Times and achingly beautiful by the Los Angeles Times. Asianweek calls him a master of lyric.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Numerous rocks of Chinese history are overturned in the star novelist's third collection, usually revealing darkness and decay. The book begins with poems about Yu the Great, who, according to legend, devised a drainage system when the Yellow River flooded its banks around the 20th century B.C., wreaking havoc on the land and its people. Even when "caged in high dikes," its threat is not forgotten: "Who can keep the river up/ in the clouds forever?" The notion that disaster is always just around the corner pervades the collection, though its components read less like poems than terse mini-fables stitched loosely together to form a tapestry of sacrifice and suffering. Violence comes from without and within, in the form of attacks by so-called barbarians as well as the capriciousness and brutality of emperors and bureaucrats: "Lord of Heaven, how can you govern/ the earth like a fool/ and let officials multiply/ more than laborers and taxpayers?" The heinous treatment of women is a recurrent theme from a concubine mutilated and thrown into an outhouse pit ("Human Pig") to a gruesome account of foot binding ("A Young Girl's Lament"), in which it is observed how "the toes curl in like dead caterpillars./ Who would think they belong to a human being?" Cannibalism during drought or wartime is mentioned frequently "Salvation" describes "human flesh/ served in restaurants under/ the name Two-Legged Lamb." Dealing with such charged material forces the poet to flatten his affect. If the writing occasionally borders on the banal, it seems consciously intended to reflect the banality of evil. (June)Forecast: A former People's Army soldier, Ha Jin eventually landed in the U.S. for an English Ph.D., and remained after the Tiananmen massacre. Eight books later, Waiting received critical raves and went on to win the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. This collection should attract readers of his fiction and fans of his poetry alike.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

Afterward I Became A Model Wife
Betrayal
Between A Lamb And A Dog
A Burial
Burying Them
A Change
A Childless Merchant
Cleansing The Body
Closing A Breach
A Contract
A Court Proposal
A Diviner's Confession
A Dragon Lover
A Drought
Equality
An Execution
An Exile's Song
The Expatriates
Expedition
Fate
The First Brush
A Gentleman's Dream
Human Pig
A Human Scarecrow
In Confucius's Class
Lament
A Lost Scholar
Meeting The Barbarians: A Ghost's Argument
Meeting The Barbarians: An Edict From The Empress Dowager
Meeting The Barbarians: An Opium Smoker
Meeting The Barbarians: Breach
Meeting The Barbarians: Departure
Meeting The Barbarians: Etiquette
Meeting The Barbarians: Help
Meeting The Barbarians: Starting Off
Meeting The Barbarians: The First European
Meeting The Barbarians: The Rebel Leaders
Meeting The Barbarians: The Victory
Meeting The Barbarians: Trade
A Mission
Ode On The Cangue
On Issuing A Residential Certificate
On The Great Wall
A Query
Questions
Reproach
A Return
The Returned Crane
Reward And Punishment
Salvation
The Script
A Sculpture Of Lovers (circa 200 A.d.)
A Sedan Chair
Seized
A Sewing Song
A Sorcerer
Surrender
A Temple
To Her Sister
To Survive
A Weapon
Words By A Castrated Writer
The Worthy Ruler's Way
A Young Girl's Lament
Yu The Great: A Legend
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Edition details

• Publisher: Hanging Loose Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1882413970
• ISBN 13: 9781882413973
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112