Sign-In
Cart
chengyu: chinoiserie
Paperback
Publisher Price: $12.99
ISBN13: 9781913499044
Publisher: Modiphius Entertainment
Published: Mar 9 2020
Pages: 30
Weight: 0.11
Height: 0.07 Width: 5.83 Depth: 8.27
Language: English
The chengyu, Mandarin Chinese for idiom, condenses a feeling, sentence and more often than not a story into four characters. Similarly, each of Leung's poems is a cross-section; aiming to capture a slice of the world, or a relationship and presenting them to the reader as representations of the whole.
Each of the poems in chengyu: chinoiserie are literal translations or re-interpretations of a Chinese idiom, referencing the duality of identity in Leung's bilingual and cross-cultural upbringing; each idiom and poem a succinct summary of an important relationship, person or part of her life. The meaning of chinoiserie is subverted in her poems as these idioms reimagined as English poems are neither particularly chinese-esque or un-chinese-esque, though the author is very much fully Chinese herself. This is done because the Asian author writing in English does not have the obligation to only strictly write about Orientalist themes, nor should they avoid writing about their culture should they have something they wish to express.
The author's first collection is an earnest exploration into the themes of young love and coming-of-age, which are so often looked-down upon in poetry as immature and unimportant. Leung also explores the meaning of sociocultural as well as personal identity through a world of visuals and objects.
Also in
General Poetry
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Pitavy, Francois
Alighieri, Dante
Paperback
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
Sounding the Seasons Enlarged Edition: One Hundred and Ten Sonnets for the Christian Year
Guite, Malcolm
Paperback
Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Lao Tzu
Paperback