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World Beat: International Poetry Now From New Directions
A celebration of contemporary poetry from around the world, World International Poetry Now from New Directions is a treasure trove that will satisfy and fascinate poetry lovers.
A mosaic of twenty-eight foreign and American poets, World Beat is an extraordinary compilation, unlike any other anthology, of the poetry being written today. For some seventy years, New Directions Publishing has brought literary America the world, introducing many of the world's most important, and at the time usually unknown, writers. Today, with a diminishing earth and an increasingly isolated United States, dialogue among the nations is desperately needed. On the poetic front, this dialogue assumes a particular potency and urgency. In World Beat , expertly edited by the remarkable writer and translator Eliot Weinberger, a new generation of New Directions poets from across the globe mingles in a euphonic cross-cultural chorus.
The collection opens with the last poem by Octavio Paz, a major work previously unpublished in book form, and then tracks through the writings of foreign and American poets that New Directions has published in recent years. From the haunting erotic lyrics of the young Albanian poet Luljeta Lleshanaku, to the powerful political insights of exiled Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai, and Caribbean poet Kamau Brathwaite, to the lapidary beauty of Dutch poet Hans Faverey and the wild experiments of Chinese poet Gu Cheng and Japanese poet Kazuko Shiraishi, to Nobel Prize shortlisters Bei Dao of China, Inger Christensen of Denmark, Gennady Aygi of Chuvashia, and Tomas Transtromer of Swedenhere is a planetary greatest hits that also includes work by Canadian Anne Carson and a range of American poets (Susan Howe, Michael Palmer, Robert Creeley among them), whose works take on new resonances when read alongside their world-peers.
A mosaic of twenty-eight foreign and American poets, World Beat is an extraordinary compilation, unlike any other anthology, of the poetry being written today. For some seventy years, New Directions Publishing has brought literary America the world, introducing many of the world's most important, and at the time usually unknown, writers. Today, with a diminishing earth and an increasingly isolated United States, dialogue among the nations is desperately needed. On the poetic front, this dialogue assumes a particular potency and urgency. In World Beat , expertly edited by the remarkable writer and translator Eliot Weinberger, a new generation of New Directions poets from across the globe mingles in a euphonic cross-cultural chorus.
The collection opens with the last poem by Octavio Paz, a major work previously unpublished in book form, and then tracks through the writings of foreign and American poets that New Directions has published in recent years. From the haunting erotic lyrics of the young Albanian poet Luljeta Lleshanaku, to the powerful political insights of exiled Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai, and Caribbean poet Kamau Brathwaite, to the lapidary beauty of Dutch poet Hans Faverey and the wild experiments of Chinese poet Gu Cheng and Japanese poet Kazuko Shiraishi, to Nobel Prize shortlisters Bei Dao of China, Inger Christensen of Denmark, Gennady Aygi of Chuvashia, and Tomas Transtromer of Swedenhere is a planetary greatest hits that also includes work by Canadian Anne Carson and a range of American poets (Susan Howe, Michael Palmer, Robert Creeley among them), whose works take on new resonances when read alongside their world-peers.
- GenresPoetry
258 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
2 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Eliot Weinberger
97 books165 followersEliot Weinberger is a contemporary American writer, essayist, editor, and translator. His work regularly appears in translation and has been published in some thirty languages.
Weinberger first gained recognition for his translations of the Nobel Prize winning writer and poet Octavio Paz. His many translations of the work of Paz include the Collected Poems 1957-1987, In Light of India, and Sunstone. Among Weinberger's other translations are Vicente Huidobro's Altazor, Xavier Villaurrutia's Nostalgia for Death, and Jorge Luis Borges' Seven Nights. His edition of Borges’ Selected Non-Fictions received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
Weinberger first gained recognition for his translations of the Nobel Prize winning writer and poet Octavio Paz. His many translations of the work of Paz include the Collected Poems 1957-1987, In Light of India, and Sunstone. Among Weinberger's other translations are Vicente Huidobro's Altazor, Xavier Villaurrutia's Nostalgia for Death, and Jorge Luis Borges' Seven Nights. His edition of Borges’ Selected Non-Fictions received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 6, 2020
Anthologies are always the result of constraints, some visible and some invisible, and this anthology, edited by Eliot Weinberger, is no different. It's meant to capture International Poetry, and it does that, with (mostly living and contemporary) poets from Russia, Albania, China, Mexico, France, etc. It's also meant to showcase poets who publish with New Directions, so right there, we have a kind of strange focus. It's also worth mentioning that maybe half the poets presented here are Americans, usually alternating with a like-minded poet from abroad.
The other constraint that you might not have noticed from the table of contents is that this anthology has a real fondness for long poems. This means most poets' selections include at least one poem of five pages or more. This is unusual, in my experience-- usually shorter works make it to anthologies and you need to read a single author volume to get a long poem. That trend is reversed here. I'm not sure that's a choice I think is justified in this case, where I didn't think a lot of the long poems presented here. But buyer beware, right?
I was kind of disappointed with this anthology as a whole; I thought there were too many Americans in this anthology. But I did love some of the work here, and when I was struggling to find accessible translations of contempory(ish) Chinese poetry aside from Bei Dao, this book's selection of poems from Gu Cheng went a long way to doing that.
The other constraint that you might not have noticed from the table of contents is that this anthology has a real fondness for long poems. This means most poets' selections include at least one poem of five pages or more. This is unusual, in my experience-- usually shorter works make it to anthologies and you need to read a single author volume to get a long poem. That trend is reversed here. I'm not sure that's a choice I think is justified in this case, where I didn't think a lot of the long poems presented here. But buyer beware, right?
I was kind of disappointed with this anthology as a whole; I thought there were too many Americans in this anthology. But I did love some of the work here, and when I was struggling to find accessible translations of contempory(ish) Chinese poetry aside from Bei Dao, this book's selection of poems from Gu Cheng went a long way to doing that.
May 2, 2019
The Endless Net
by Mark Chmiel
Ten years ago, I read Eliot Weinberger’s anthology, World Beat: International Poetry Now (New Directions, 2006). Looking back, I’m grateful, because that volume (re)introduced me to Israeli Aharon Shabtai, Iraqi Dunya Mikhail, and Chilean Nicanor Parra, all of whom I have read over and over since then. I encourage anyone to read Mikhail’s “The War Works Hard,” Shabtai’s “As We Were Marching,” and Parra’s “Seven Voluntary Labors and One Seditious Act.” In his introduction, Weinberger offers a sobering yet hopeful case for us engaging poets outside the U.S.: “All translation sends the essential message that one’s own culture is not enough, and that the way to avoid intellectual stagnation is to learn from other ways of thinking about, perceiving, luxuriating and despairing in the world. This book appears at a moment when the United States is particularly self-absorbed. Less than a fifth of its citizens have passports; a third of its high school students can find the Pacific Ocean on a world map; its rulers dream without embarrassment of a global empire. Poetry, though not the salvation of the world, presents a small alternate model: an endless net of individual dialogues between writers, and between writers and readers, regardless of governments, nations, and communal identities. Its books are a way out of one’s world and a way into the world at large.” Twenty years ago, I received a doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. I rarely read theologians these days, and I eagerly take joy and refuge in the poets. Weinberger’s books helped facilitate this shift for me.
by Mark Chmiel
Ten years ago, I read Eliot Weinberger’s anthology, World Beat: International Poetry Now (New Directions, 2006). Looking back, I’m grateful, because that volume (re)introduced me to Israeli Aharon Shabtai, Iraqi Dunya Mikhail, and Chilean Nicanor Parra, all of whom I have read over and over since then. I encourage anyone to read Mikhail’s “The War Works Hard,” Shabtai’s “As We Were Marching,” and Parra’s “Seven Voluntary Labors and One Seditious Act.” In his introduction, Weinberger offers a sobering yet hopeful case for us engaging poets outside the U.S.: “All translation sends the essential message that one’s own culture is not enough, and that the way to avoid intellectual stagnation is to learn from other ways of thinking about, perceiving, luxuriating and despairing in the world. This book appears at a moment when the United States is particularly self-absorbed. Less than a fifth of its citizens have passports; a third of its high school students can find the Pacific Ocean on a world map; its rulers dream without embarrassment of a global empire. Poetry, though not the salvation of the world, presents a small alternate model: an endless net of individual dialogues between writers, and between writers and readers, regardless of governments, nations, and communal identities. Its books are a way out of one’s world and a way into the world at large.” Twenty years ago, I received a doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. I rarely read theologians these days, and I eagerly take joy and refuge in the poets. Weinberger’s books helped facilitate this shift for me.
December 27, 2015
Picked this up at the library looking for some inspiration. Not only are the forms fresh, the poetic voices diverse, but a few are achingly timely. America by Dunya Mikhail (p. 17) is an immigrant's cry for understanding of the depth of loss and change that comes with relocation. I love the quiet open lines of Gennady Aygi's House in a Field (p. 162) and the long fast downhill run of Inger Christensen's Alphabet (p. 123). There are some beautiful images in Fourteen Irises for J. L. by Gustaf Sobin (p. 137) and the fabulous final lines of The Wild Pigs of Kalimatan (p. 187) by Kazuko Shiraisbi. And because I love the river and the herons, I recommend Zipango 2. Heron by Charles Tomlinson.
"where dew slips,
icy
pearl, from its
petal, the
tall stalk
scarce-
ly trembles..."
Gustaf Sobin p. 139
"where dew slips,
icy
pearl, from its
petal, the
tall stalk
scarce-
ly trembles..."
Gustaf Sobin p. 139
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews