Chinese Poets Since 1949 ed. by Christopher Lupke and Thomas Moran

Abstract

Reviewed by: Chinese Poets Since 1949 ed. by Christopher Lupke and Thomas Moran Frederik Green Christopher Lupke and Thomas Moran, eds. Chinese Poets Since 1949. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 387. Detroit: Gale Cengage / Columbia, SC: Bruccoli Clark Layman, 2021. 461 p. Few reference works have accompanied me as reliably throughout my career—first as a student, then as a scholar and teacher—as Gale's Dictionary of Literary Biographies (DLB) series. With the publication in 2007 of Chinese Fiction Writers from 1900-1949 and in 2013 of Chinese Fiction Writers from 1950-2000, the DLB series finally paid tribute to the rich legacy of twentieth-century Chinese literature. These are still the most comprehensive and authoritative bibliographical reference works on modern Chinese-language novelists, and Editor Thomas E. Moran must have known that he had set the bar high for any subsequent volume dedicated to modern Chinese literature. With the publication of DLB # 387 Chinese Poets Since 1949, Co-editors Christopher Lupke and Thomas E. Moran have clearly risen to the challenge. Encompassing some forty-five poets who have all contributed in significant ways to the flowering of Chinese-language poetry in the second half of the twentieth- and the first two decades of the twenty-first centuries, [End Page 147] the tome under review impresses with its sheer breadth as well as its academic rigor. Clocking in at 461 pages, Chinese Poets Since 1949 is a behemoth that, at first sight, displays all the usual characteristics of the DLB series. Besides the elegantly written and thoroughly researched bibliographical essays by forty international scholars, it features a general introduction by the two co-editors, a comprehensive checklist of Further Readings, and a cumulative index to the entire DLB series. In addition to the conventional qualities of such a reference work, Chinese Poets Since 1949, upon closer inspection, reveals a host of unexpected treasures. Accompanied by a photograph of the poet discussed, each entry further includes reproductions of a wide variety of documents, ranging from select book covers and dust jackets to handwritten manuscripts, such as pages from poems by Aku Wuwu (11) or Ling Yu (92). The entry for poet-painter Yan Li reproduces a painting by the artist (229), while the one for Lü De'an includes a photo of the mountain dwelling that the poet painstakingly built himself and which, according to Paul Manfredi, is "a kind of sweeping analogy for Lü's writing process writ large" (99). The general introduction further replicates covers from key literary journals such as Lanxing Shikan (Blue Star Poetry Journal) and Jintian (Today). These documents, painstakingly assembled from various archives across the world or made available courtesy of the authors or contributors, thus provide valuable additional clues to understanding the production, dissemination, consumption, and reception of Chinese-language poetry since the mid-twentieth century. Most users will probably treat Chinese Poets Since 1949 as a reference work to be consulted when researching one or more modern Chinese-language poets, and it excels beautifully at this function. Each essay begins with a complete list of the featured author's Chinese-language poetry books, editions and translations in English, and other relevant publications and concludes with a reference section. Sometimes in collections that incorporate a large number of contributors, the quality of entries varies greatly, but not in this case. All forty-five essays are solidly researched, well written, and complete in their presentation of bibliographical information. This consistently high academic quality throughout is the result of the two co-editors' feat of assembling a veritable who's who in the field of English-language [End Page 148] scholarship on modern Chinese language poetry. Based at universities in the US, Europe, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Australia, all are established scholars (and in most cases translators) of modern Chinese poetry, and many have been instrumental in introducing one or more of the authors discussed to readers in the West. While each entry exhibits great academic rigor and attention to detail, the approach contributors have taken in presenting their respective poets' biographies varies somewhat. All include at least some examples of poetry in translation to complement the theoretical and socio-historical contextualization of the given...