My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree: Selected Poems

Yi Lei

ISBN 10: 1644450402 / ISBN 13: 9781644450406

Published by Graywolf Press,U.S., 2020

About this Item

Yi Lei published her poem "A Single Woman's Bedroom" in 1987, when cohabitation before marriage was a punishable crime in China. She was met with major critical acclaim-and with outrage-for her frank embrace of women's erotic desire and her unabashed critique of oppressive law. Over the span of her revolutionary career, Yi Lei became one of the most influential figures in contemporary Chinese poetry. Passionate, rigorous, and inimitable, the poems in My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree celebrate the joys of the body, ponder the miracle of compassion, and proclaim an abiding reverence for the natural world. Presented in the original Chinese alongside English translations by Changtai Bi and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith, this collection introduces American readers to a boundless spirit-one "composing an explosion.".

Seller Inventory # CIN1644450402G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree: Selected Poems
• Publisher: Graywolf Press,U.S.
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1644450402
• ISBN 13: 9781644450406
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

One of China’s most significant contemporary poets, co-translated by former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith

*Shortlisted for the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize*

Yi Lei published her poem “A Single Woman’s Bedroom” in 1987, when cohabitation before marriage was a punishable crime in China. She was met with major critical acclaim―and with outrage―for her frank embrace of women’s erotic desire and her unabashed critique of oppressive law. Over the span of her revolutionary career, Yi Lei became one of the most influential figures in contemporary Chinese poetry.

Passionate, rigorous, and inimitable, the poems in My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree celebrate the joys of the body, ponder the miracle of compassion, and proclaim an abiding reverence for the natural world. Presented in the original Chinese alongside English translations by Changtai Bi and Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Tracy K. Smith, this collection introduces American readers to a boundless spirit―one “composing an explosion.”

About the Author

Yi Lei (1951–2018) received the Zhuang Zhongwen Literature Prize and published eight collections of poems, including A Single Woman’s Bedroom, The Love Poems of Yi Lei, and Women’s Age. Her work has been translated into five languages.