My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree
Selected Poems
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
One of China’s most significant contemporary poets, co-translated by former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith
*Shortlisted for the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize*
Yi Lei published her poem “A Single Woman’s Bedroom” in 1987, when cohabitation before marriage was a punishable crime in China. She was met with major critical acclaim—and with outrage—for her frank embrace of women’s erotic desire and her unabashed critique of oppressive law. Over the span of her revolutionary career, Yi Lei became one of the most influential figures in contemporary Chinese poetry.
Passionate, rigorous, and inimitable, the poems in My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree celebrate the joys of the body, ponder the miracle of compassion, and proclaim an abiding reverence for the natural world. Presented in the original Chinese alongside English translations by Changtai Bi and Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Tracy K. Smith, this collection introduces American readers to a boundless spirit—one “composing an explosion.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the introduction to this stunning collection, Smith writes that Lei "astounded readers in China when, in 1987, she published a long poem entitled A Single Woman's Bedroom'... this at a time when cohabitation before marriage was still illegal in China." But the poem in question isn't simply about erotic desire a topic Lei writes poignantly about it's on agency and freedom of the mind, as well: "I imagine a life in which I possess/ All that I lack. I fix what has failed./ What never was, I build and seize." Lei's poems fearlessly and thoughtfully explore sensuality, celebrating physical pleasure in spite of societal restrictions. Her poems also praise the beauty of the natural world, as in "Glorious Golden Birds Are Singing," in which she paints a vivid scene through unusual juxtaposition: "Glorious golden birds are singing/ In heavy hexagonal snow./ Gold, brass, bronze, zinc, copper and tin. All are my kin." Lei's frankness and lyricism make her a significant voice in Chinese poetry, one that rightfully deserves a wider international audience.
