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Afloat
Afloat , John Reibetanz's eighth collection of poetry, focuses on water in many manifestations. The centerpiece, a sequence on the Three Gorges Dam and its cultural and environmental implications, brings ancient Chinese sources (Meng Chiao and the painter Dong Yuan) together with modern ones (Edward Burtynsky's photographs and violent video games) to create an elegy that is moving and meditative. Although water is everywhere present as a subject, it is song that provides the motivating power, the vehicle of longing that animates the book. "We thirst for song" the closing words of the Lament for the Gorges sequence could really serve as the book's epigraph. This is poetry exercising its full range of possible functions (to observe, to enquire, to elegize, to imagine, to think, to commemorate, to yearn and to feel), all in the service of that "thirst for song."
104 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2013
3 people want to read
About the author
John Reibetanz
21 books5 followersJohn Reibetanz earned a BA in English from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and an MA and a PhD in English language and literature from Princeton University.
He is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Transformations (2006), Mining for Sun (2000), and Ashbourn (1986), as well as the critical study The Lear World (1977). His poetry has been included in several anthologies, such as The Signal Anthology: Contemporary Canadian Poetry (1993) and Aurora: New Canadian Writing (1978).
Reibetanz won first prize in the 2003 Petra Kenney Poetry Competition and was a finalist for a 1995 National Magazine Award. A member of the League of Canadian Poets, he teaches at the University of Toronto and lives in Toronto with his family.
He was elected a Senior Fellow of Massey College in 2010.
He is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Transformations (2006), Mining for Sun (2000), and Ashbourn (1986), as well as the critical study The Lear World (1977). His poetry has been included in several anthologies, such as The Signal Anthology: Contemporary Canadian Poetry (1993) and Aurora: New Canadian Writing (1978).
Reibetanz won first prize in the 2003 Petra Kenney Poetry Competition and was a finalist for a 1995 National Magazine Award. A member of the League of Canadian Poets, he teaches at the University of Toronto and lives in Toronto with his family.
He was elected a Senior Fellow of Massey College in 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 3, 2014
John Rebetanz is the first Canadian poet I communicated with when I was still living in China. I was deeply touched by his poems, such as his Rembrandt (http://library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/...) and “A World of Light” (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...). When I just move to Toronto, Reibetanz was reading Du Fu. He introduced me the works of Edward Burtynsky, especially his photographs of The Three Gorges Dam. Reibetanz was writing a series of poems about the Three Gorges, its past and present, inspired by classical Chinese poetry form. Because of him, I started to research on Burtynsky and contemporary Chinese artists’ works about the Three Gorges, where I had never been to. Thinking of this is a bitter regret, it’s not good to just imagine a place that is part of your cultural life. Nature and men have both been displaced, this feeling is especially poignant for me. Just as what Geoffrey Hill wrote: “like a disciplined scholar, / I piece fragments together, past conjecture / Establishing true sequence of pain.” The research led me into the field of environment-concerned thinking.
Afloat was published two years ago, in the book Reibetanz included nine poems of The Lament of Gorges. Approved by the poet, I translated these poems into Chinese, and sent to an editor of a poetry magazine, who also loves Reibetanz’s poems. But he refused to publish these translated poems at the time, because they are critical of the Three Gorges Dam project. I was angry, and refused to co-operate with the magazine again. But a few days ago, the editor wrote to me and asked if he could still publish the translation The Lament of Gorges in another poetry magazine. This is good. Even one more reader can touch these poems, it is a good thing.
For Chinese readers, some of Reibetanz’s poems translated into Chinese.
http://www.douban.com/doulist/1914701/
The essay on works by Burtynsky and Chinese Contemporary artists:
https://www.academia.edu/4676914/Disp...
Afloat was published two years ago, in the book Reibetanz included nine poems of The Lament of Gorges. Approved by the poet, I translated these poems into Chinese, and sent to an editor of a poetry magazine, who also loves Reibetanz’s poems. But he refused to publish these translated poems at the time, because they are critical of the Three Gorges Dam project. I was angry, and refused to co-operate with the magazine again. But a few days ago, the editor wrote to me and asked if he could still publish the translation The Lament of Gorges in another poetry magazine. This is good. Even one more reader can touch these poems, it is a good thing.
For Chinese readers, some of Reibetanz’s poems translated into Chinese.
http://www.douban.com/doulist/1914701/
The essay on works by Burtynsky and Chinese Contemporary artists:
https://www.academia.edu/4676914/Disp...
March 9, 2014
Water is the most abundant substance around us therefore we take it for granted. It is necessary for our survival yet too much of it could kill us too. John Reibetanz takes a dramatic look at water in his book Afloat, and gives us pause to reflect on this element.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews