Within the contemporary poetry scene Yang Ke is unique. He has exhibited through his work a deeply personalised historical imagination and a steely regard for truth. his urban poetry has created a unusual subjectivity. For over thirty years his writing, which is heavily informed by traditional Chinese poetry, has struck out upon an alternative path. His work is characterised by both an intense emotional appeal and also a constant drive towards a more innovative poetics.
I have had the honour to meet the poet Yang Ke on a number of occasions in both Cambridge and China. I have enjoyed his presence at the Cambridge Xu Zhimo Poetry and Arts Festival, where he was awarded a special prize. So, it is an poetry to be published by Cam Rivers Publishing.
It is well known that poetry is the hardest of all art forms to translate between cultures. Music, painting, drama can all be appreciated for themselves, but poetry is multi-layered and refers to many things outside the words, already stored in the reader's experience. Almost all of its references are lost in translation, as is much of the rhythm, rhyme and diction, which gives the original force. So, I had expected that when I came to hear and read Yang Ke's poetry, I would feel the same sense of disappointment and puzzlement that I normally feel when I try to explain, this is not the case. Instead, I read his poems with as much, or almost as much, pleasure as I read other T.S. Elliot, Dylan Thomas. This is in part because I know the landscapes and people of China from seventeen visits there, and
Yet there are also other features which make his poetry powerful, even in translation. There is great energy and movement, both in the words and ideas, and yet there is also a contrasted stillness and peace at their heart. I wonder whether this is related to a Buddhist or even Daoist meditative strain in the work? There is great variety, both within each poem and in the subject matter of the poems. They range from minute planet (as in 'Two Halves') or even the whole cosmos. They vary from the rural, rooted in a love of nature and plants, to the of the two, where the urban sprawl of modern China meets pockets of the old agrarian China (as in 'Small Rice Field'), or where the cities become living plants (as in 'Pomegranate'). They also capture the huge variety of China itself, ranging across it provinces, and picking out its diverse population (as in 'Chinese People'). In its treatment of people, whether it is 'Mother Teresa' or ordinary Chinese workers, there is a deep sympathy and empathy, an acknowledgement of the dignity and resilience of the millions of hard-working human beings. We hear of their withering comments on social injustice, bureaucracy, state lies and the hypocrisy of power (as in 'Related and Unrelated').
Yang Ke has published numerous works including eleven books of poetry. These include Yang Ke’s Poems, Related and Unrelated, I speak the Shape of the Wind as well as four prose essays and one non-fiction book. His work has been published by the Peoples Literature Publishing House and Taiwan Huapin Wenchuang, amongst others. Yang Ke’s poetry books have been translated into ten different languages and published by the Japanese Ichao Society, the University of Oklahoma University Press, and the University of Zaragoza as well as many others. Yang Ke’s poems and essays have also been published more than 400 times in works including China’s New Literature Series and 100 Years of Chinese New Poetry.
