No Poetry: Selected Poems

By Che Qianzi

Poetry. Asian Studies. Translated by Yunte Huang. Bilingual Edition. Shortlisted for the American Literary Translators Association's Lucien Stryk Prize. Che Qianzi is a poet incarnate with the ancient soul of China's immortals. Here are his most ecstatic, restless, and seriously playful poems, in luminous new translations by Yunte Huang. NO POETRY represents the largest selection of Che's poetry available to English readers in a bilingual edition, capturing the exuberance and vitality of this visionary poet from the streets of Suzhou.

Che Qianzi's poems are hilariously understated acts of sabotage. Hence, 'No Poetry.' Inclinations toward descriptions and syllogism stutter into nugatory notes 'that flow out of hell' or are abandoned, wisdom statements ('Staying awake to the truth') are severed at the root, and slogans rendered as self-cannibalizing knock-offs. A kingdom of creatures-chickens, ants, spiders, crows, roosters, a horse peering through its right eye with its left eye, etcetera-address 'the pain of being human.' Ironically, Che Qianzi's poems are not what they seem because everything in Che's poems is just what it is.-Forrest Gander

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0578569981
• ISBN13: 9780578569987
• Release Date: November 2019
• Publisher: Polymorph Editions
• Length: 177 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 7.9"