Reading Wednesday
Finished reading: Frogs in the Rain Barrel by Sally Ito. After some of the previous volumes I've read through by other poets, this one was kind of a balm for my mind - while not all of her work clicked with me, Ito's work is close to my taste. It has a simple elegance, a sort of... just-right-ness, with lots of imagery that is vivid but not florid. I like best the works centred around relations, around immigration ("Roots"), also the ones with a strong sense of place - such as "Night in Prospector's Valley", with its lines like so:
it is like a bear,
this darkness -
as if we had bedded in its very fur,
nestling in what we fear most
of this wilderness
Simply lovely. There are others that are good, but not to my taste, not because of the quality but because of the subject - there are quite a few works in this collection that deal with Christian themes, and since I'm not of that religion, nor am I deeply familiar enough with the Bible to appreciate the references from an ancient literature standpoint, those ones aren't really my thing. They're just as well-crafted as the rest, though. So, while I won't be buying this one, I can see myself taking it out from the library again....
Currently reading: Haven't made much headway in Amsterdam: A History, mainly because it's a big fat book and I don't like taking it with me on the transit, which means not much reading has been getting done, heh. Still enjoying it, even if the author's attempts to shoehorn it into a general point are kind of clunky.
Also reading: I haven't had much time to get deep into Chinese Poetry: From Ancient to Contemporary yet, but what I've read so far has been great. Usually it's about 50-50 whether I'll bother reading the preface + introduction in things like this, but considering my unfamiliarity with the subject, I felt it necessary. Rather glad that I took the time to do that - the explanation of the challenges of Ch-Eng translation, and how it applies to poetry in particular, was pretty interesting (and makes me wonder what difficulties there might be for other languages... because I'm pretty sure Hauge would have read the works of Li Po in Norwegian. I wonder what those poems might have looked/felt like...) But aside from that, I've been flipping through the rest of the book when I have a moment or two, and coming across works that I like very much. One in particular, Spring Gazing by Xue Tao, gives me ideas (or inspiration) of the kind that I might have been looking for. ("I pull a blade of grass and tie a heart-shaped knot / to send to the one who understands my music"... Hmm... HMM :D Gee, I wonder.)
Reading next: Probably Ed Riche's Today I Learned It Was You. The summary on the back gives me pause - it... sounds like the kind of book that I would not ordinarily pick up; apparently it's partially a satire about "overzealous rights activists". What I consider "overzealous" is not necessarily what other people would (I fit in fine online, but offline, my views would be considered scandalous in this conservative city) so... I don't know. Are we talking 'overzealous' as in, say, PETA? Or 'overzealous' as in something that I would consider entirely benign? I can't be sure. But since I've liked all the other works I've read by this author, I'll give it a try. You can't always trust that the actual contents will be reflected properly in summaries, anyway. And if I don't like it, then at least I didn't pay for it, and I can just dump it in the library dropbox without forcing myself to finish it.
This entry was originally posted at http://yuuago.dreamwidth.org/3532832.html. You can comment here or at the original entry.
it is like a bear,
this darkness -
as if we had bedded in its very fur,
nestling in what we fear most
of this wilderness
Simply lovely. There are others that are good, but not to my taste, not because of the quality but because of the subject - there are quite a few works in this collection that deal with Christian themes, and since I'm not of that religion, nor am I deeply familiar enough with the Bible to appreciate the references from an ancient literature standpoint, those ones aren't really my thing. They're just as well-crafted as the rest, though. So, while I won't be buying this one, I can see myself taking it out from the library again....
Currently reading: Haven't made much headway in Amsterdam: A History, mainly because it's a big fat book and I don't like taking it with me on the transit, which means not much reading has been getting done, heh. Still enjoying it, even if the author's attempts to shoehorn it into a general point are kind of clunky.
Also reading: I haven't had much time to get deep into Chinese Poetry: From Ancient to Contemporary yet, but what I've read so far has been great. Usually it's about 50-50 whether I'll bother reading the preface + introduction in things like this, but considering my unfamiliarity with the subject, I felt it necessary. Rather glad that I took the time to do that - the explanation of the challenges of Ch-Eng translation, and how it applies to poetry in particular, was pretty interesting (and makes me wonder what difficulties there might be for other languages... because I'm pretty sure Hauge would have read the works of Li Po in Norwegian. I wonder what those poems might have looked/felt like...) But aside from that, I've been flipping through the rest of the book when I have a moment or two, and coming across works that I like very much. One in particular, Spring Gazing by Xue Tao, gives me ideas (or inspiration) of the kind that I might have been looking for. ("I pull a blade of grass and tie a heart-shaped knot / to send to the one who understands my music"... Hmm... HMM :D Gee, I wonder.)
Reading next: Probably Ed Riche's Today I Learned It Was You. The summary on the back gives me pause - it... sounds like the kind of book that I would not ordinarily pick up; apparently it's partially a satire about "overzealous rights activists". What I consider "overzealous" is not necessarily what other people would (I fit in fine online, but offline, my views would be considered scandalous in this conservative city) so... I don't know. Are we talking 'overzealous' as in, say, PETA? Or 'overzealous' as in something that I would consider entirely benign? I can't be sure. But since I've liked all the other works I've read by this author, I'll give it a try. You can't always trust that the actual contents will be reflected properly in summaries, anyway. And if I don't like it, then at least I didn't pay for it, and I can just dump it in the library dropbox without forcing myself to finish it.
This entry was originally posted at http://yuuago.dreamwidth.org/3532832.html. You can comment here or at the original entry.