Contemporary China Centre University of Westminster AGENCY AND IMAGE IN POETIC LANGUAGE: AN ENCOUNTER BETWEEN ADONIS AND YANG LIAN Monday 8 November 2010 5.30 - 8pm The Pavilion University of Westminster 115 New Cavendish Street London W1W 6UW ‘My loneliness is a garden.’ Adonis ‘Watching ourselves set sail.’ Yang Lian Numerous Chinese and Arabic poets have been translated into English but few are translated across these two languages. Chinese and Arabic poets have not therefore to date enjoyed the opportunity to become acquainted with each other’s poetry except when mediated by the intervention of a third language. Yet there are many reasons to begin to explore shared themes across these poetic fields, from the global status of their two ‘world cultures’, distinctive yet intersecting legacies of engagement with colonialism and Western poetry, to common problems of cultural translation. A recent encounter in Jordan in 2002 between Adonis, the Arab world’s best known poet, and Yang Lian, one of the ‘founders’ of contemporary Chinese poetry and a London-based political-cultural critic, has begun an unprecedented exchange between these two world cultures. Pursuing the themes of cultural ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’ which the two share in their writing, they have since 2002 held a number of dialogues, their poems have been translated into Arabic and Chinese (as well as English), and interviews between them have been translated into English, as well as Arabic and Chinese. This encounter between Adonis and Yang Lian will focus on the question of how poetic languages in translation can have a universal appeal across experiences of cultural and political difference, transnational migration and exile. It will address issues of poetic translation through a focus on language and the poetic image and the ways in which translation of the image may incorporate understandings of the ‘other’ as a condition of poetry’s universal appeal. Imagining the universal possibilities of the image creates a space for the exercise of an inclusive agency on the part of both poet and reader, by creating ties of understanding that transcend differences of language and time. So, how is the image translated in poetry? Does translation of the image into another cultural and linguistic environment necessarily mean that the translated poem is a new poem? What insights do Pound’s and Eliot’s interest in Arabic and Chinese poetry bring to the universal possibilities of poetic understanding? Conversely, what light does their influence on Arabic and Chinese poetry shed on the universal potential of poetic images? And transcending these questions, how might a poetic passion based on a questioning of the self become the foundation of a new, trans-cultural political understanding? Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said Esber) is a Syrian poet and essayist and a central figure of the modernist movement in Arabic poetry in the second half of the 20th century. Born in 1930 in Qassabin, a small mountain village in western Syria close to the Mediterranean, he has written more than 20 books of poetry, including the pioneering works "Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs,"This Is My Name," "Singular in a Plural Form," and Al-Kitab, a three-volume poetic tour de force. Articulating a radical vision of Arab history and culture, as well as a hunger for change, Adonis is also the author of several works of literary criticism and translation. His works have been translated into many languages, and his numerous awards include the Bjørnson Prize, the first International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, the Syria-Lebanon Best Poet Award, and the highest award of the International Poem Biennial in Brussels. He resides in between Paris, Qassabin, and Beirut. Yang Lian was born in Switzerland in 1955, and grew up in Beijing. He began writing when he was sent to the countryside in the 1970s. On his return to Beijing he became one of the first group of young ‘underground’ poets, who published the literary magazine Jintian. Yang Lian was invited to visit Australia and New Zealand in 1988 and became a poet in exile after the Tian’anmen massacre. Since then. he has continued to write and speak out as a highly individual voice in world literature, politics and culture. He has published seven selections of poems, two selections of prose and many essays in Chinese. His work has also been translated into more than twenty languages, including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Eastern European languages. He was awarded the Flaiano International Poetry Prize (Italy, 1999) and his book Where the Sea Stands Still: New Poems won the title ‘Poetry Books Society Recommended Translation’ (UK, 1999). His three volumes of collected works, Yang Lian Zuopin 1982-1997 (2 vols) and Yang Lian Xinzuo 1998- 2002 have been published in China. His translations into English have been Where the Sea Stands Still, (Bloodaxe Books, 1999), Yi, (Green Integer,2002); Notes of a Blissful Ghost, (Renditions Paperback, 2002); Concentric Circles, (Bloodaxe Books, 2005); Unreal City, (Auckland University Press, 2006); Riding Pisces: Poems From Five Collections, (Shearsman Books, 2008); his latest book in English translation is Lee Valley Poems, (Bloodaxe Books, 2009). RSVP to Helena Scott, [email protected] For enquiries about the Contemporary China Centre, contact Professor Harriet Evans T: +44 (0)20 7911 5000 ext 7603 E: [email protected] Contemporary China Centre Department of Modern and Applied Languages School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Languages University of Westminster 32-38 Wells Street, London W1T 3UW westminster.ac.uk/schools/humanities/research/asian-studies .