From Publishers Weekly
This very accessible and important new anthology presents poems by two dozen poets writing in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, an event that provides a deep, resonant undertone to the work which comes through even in translation. This is the generation of poets directly following the dissident "Misty School," best represented by Bei Dao in the States; most were born in the early '60s and are thus in mid-career. The preface by editor Wang Ping (herself a poet of this generation, represented accordingly) delves into the nexus of the spiritual and political, noting how the Communist Party, in an attempt to revalorize itself in the minds of the citizens, "undertook a strategy that has more or less continued until today, launching one 'socialist spiritual civilization' movement after another to stave off 'bourgeois liberalization'." The paradoxes of such a plan are well documented by these poets, most all of whom express a yearning for a new day while emitting signs of the exhaustion of being at the head of a centuries-old civilization. Liu Manliu's medition on time; Che Qianzi's beautiful examination of memory and politics; Yan Li's wryly propulsive "Serial Poetic" ("The artist often leans out, stretched/ between two extremes/ shouting for help with exquisite slogans"); Zhai Yongming's feminist, flaneur-esque "Caf? Song" and the powerful poems of Jia Wei, are all standouts. Among the many translators are David Shapiro, Lyn Hejinian, Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, all working in collaboration with Ping. While the translations are uneven, the breadth of the work is impressive, and the essential humanity of the writing is both and smart and attractive, and feels necessary. (July) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
paper 1-882413-54-7 NEW GENERATION ($25.00; paper $16.00; Jul. 19; 236 pp.; 1-882413-55-5; paper 1-882413-54-7): The Shanghai-born editor, who left China for the US in 1985, gathers together 24 young poets, all born in the 50s and 60s most still living and sometimes managing to publish under the current repressive regime. Writing in the shadow of the Tiananmen Square uprising, these avant-garde writers reject the poetic ideals of their predecessors, the so-called Misty poets, who themselves rejected the social realism of Maoism in favor of conventional romanticism. Poet after poet in this vital anthology goes beyond notions of truth and beauty for the grittier realities of everyday life; darkness pervades the experimental forms here, though the poets lack the cynicism of their Western counterparts. Many of these plain-speaking writers struggle with language itself and its relation to objects and silence. The very readable translations, supervised by Ping (who worked with numerous American poets), provide a real sense of the variety of subjects, and each poet is represented with a sample poem in the original, ranging from the confessional verse of Jia Wei about abortions and excrement to Xue Dis scream of exile, with powerful poetic manifestoes from Liu Manliu and Yu Jian as well. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Arthur Sze
"Many American readers are by now familiar with the Misty generation poets in China, but far too few readers are aware fo the diversity of Chinese poetry since then. Wang Ping's anthology is the first to feature leading poets of the new generation through translations that are collaborations with many fine contemporary poets. This is an important and moving collection."

Book Description
Poetry in translation. This collection includes the work of twenty-four Chinese avant-garde poets, representing the "new generation" of artists who have emerged over the last twenty years, during a period of tumultuous change in China. A dozen American poets worked closely with Wang Ping, a Chinese poet living in this country and the editor of the anthology, to produce translations which have preserved the excitement and clarity of these poems. "Here is a chorus of rising voices in contemporary Chinese poetry. Some of them are contemptuous; some brave; some humorous; some desperate...Together they represent the new poetic sensibilities that have completely shed the shadow of the Misty Poetry. These poems are passionate, defiant, and evocative--a great pleasure to read" (Ha Jin).

SYNOPSIS

This collection includes the work of twenty-four Chinese avant-garde poets, translated by a dozen prominent American poets.

FROM THE CRITICS

Arthur Sze