AustLit

'This sixth volume in Vagabond’s Asia Pacific Poetry Series brings together a selection of poetry from three key contemporary Chinese poets Hong Ying, Zhai Yongming & Yang Lian edited and introduced by Mabel Lee, translated by Mabel Lee, Naikan Tao & Tony Prince and with cover art by Lin Chunyan.'

Hong Ying was born in Chongqing. Her father worked on the cargo boats plying the Yangtze. She grew up in the lower strata of society. Her poetry career started in 1988. She moved to London where she won the UK Chinese Poetry Price in 1991. She also became an accomplished novelist. 

Zhai Yongming was born in Chengdu. She was sent to work as a peasant in the countryside for two years during the Cultural Revolution. Afterwards, however, she graduated in laser technology and became writing poetry. She became a role model for aspiring women poets, as the field was dominated by men. She would travel to the United States, but returned to China to enjoy celebrity status as an installation artist.

Yang Lian was born in Bern, Switzerland, but grew up in Beijing. He emerged alongside the first wave of poets during the Cultural Revolution, extolling male sexuality. He was banned from publishing for a year, but find himself reprinted and travelled to Australia, finding international fame. He has won two significant literary prizes in Italy, and has been published in many others. 

(Publisher summary) 

This seventh volume in Vagabond’s Asia Pacific Poetry Series brings together a selection of poetry from three contemporary Vietnamese poets living in Australia: Lê Văn Tài, Nguyễn Tôn Hiệt & Phan Quỳnh Trâm. Introduced by Nguyễn Hưng Quốc and with an ‘After words’ by Nhã Thuyên, this collection opens a window on contemporary writing from the Vietnamese diaspora and insights into the evolution and realities of transnational literature. Cover art by Nguyễn Hưng Trinh. [From the publisher's website]

'This volume comprises selected translations from the poetry of two important contemporary Japanese poets and one of the major postwar Japanese poets. All three poets have won awards for their poetry and are viewed in Japan as among the leading writers of their time.' (Publication Summary)

'A visual artist who lives poetry in Saigon, an illusionist who works theatres and boardrooms across the US, a journalist-translator who mediates new media, in this collection these three prominent voices in contemporary Vietnamese poetry bring to world literature the diversity and richness of poetic expressions in a fast-changing world. Nguyen Thuy Hang's poems enter the realm of stasis, rearrange and reconstruct dream sequences to bring out a language that moves and dances, rejects and embraces, taking the audience with her movements in a tour de force. With puns and wit, Do Le Anhdao's satirical poems speak strongly for many of her generation on transitory-ness, race and gender politics, confusion and dislocation. Satire at its most effective and timely, her poems are anarchistic, mischievous: a show of strength that takes masquerades and irony by the scruff. Le Dinh Nhat-Lang's poems are meditations on a kaleidoscope of the past and now; they are packed with indelible images and drawn with a delicate touch. This twelth volume in the Asia Pacific Poetry Series from Vagabond Press gives readers three of the most formidable voices from the current generation of Vietnamese poets.' (Publication Summary)

'This thirteenth volume in Vagabond Press’ Asia Pacific is a collection of poems by three Chinese women poets, Wu Suzhen, Yue Xuan and Qing Shui. Wu, born in 1981, from Jiangxi in the hinterland of China; Yue, born in 2002, from Wenling by the East China Sea; and Qing, born in 1971, from Shanghai proper.

'There is a wide range of themes covered in this book. Traditional streets that are fast disappearing in small towns in Jiangxi, people suffering from depression or madness, old women in bound feet, are what Wu Suzhen are most adept at capturing in her lines. Yue Xuan, the youngest of the three, writes short and pithy poems in a dry, humorous tone, that depict the world in the eyes of a 14-year-old. Qing Shui is lyrically passionate, writing prose poems centred on nature that are sensitive and mesmerizing.'

(Publication Summary)

'Since 1988 Hong Ying has published six major collections of poetry, her most recent being I Too Am Salammbo, a retrospective collection of poems that she has selected and arranged in rough chronological order. As in her novels Hong Ying does not baulk at exploring female sexuality. She, as author, can only re-present the characters of her novels in accordance with how she perceives them: as a woman. However her poetry is highly personal, shedding light on her personal life, including her own sexuality and sexual experiences. Female sexuality and experiences are addressed with spontaneity and naturalness, authenticating the fact that such experiences are natural human behaviour. For Hong Ying's cult followers, her poetry is as important as her novels.

'Vagabond's release of Mabel Lee's translation of I Too Am Salammbo represents the first collection in English of one of China's most important contemporary poets. ' (Publication summary)