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Old Snow: Poems
Book by Beidao, Dao, Bei
81 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1991
64 people want to read
About the author
Bei Dao
84 books122 followersName in Chinese: 北岛
Bei Dao ("Northern Island") is another name for Zhifu Island.
Bei Dao literally "Northern Island", born August 2, 1949) is the pen name of Chinese poet Zhao Zhenkai. He was born in Beijing. He chose the pen name because he came from the north and because of his preference for solitude. Bei Dao is the most notable representative of the Misty Poets, a group of Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution.
As a teenager, Bei Dao was a member of the Red Guards, the enthusiastic followers of Mao Zedong who enforced the dictates of the Cultural Revolution, often through violent means. He had misgivings about the Revolution and was "re-educated" as a construction worker, from 1969 to 1980.[5] Bei Dao and Mang Ke founded the magazine Jintian[6] (Today), the central publication of the Misty Poets, which was published from 1978 until 1980, when it was banned. The work of the Misty Poets and Bei Dao in particular were an inspiration to pro-democracy movements in China. Most notable was his poem "Huida" ("The Answer") which was written during the 1976 Tiananmen demonstrations in which he participated. The poem was taken up as a defiant anthem of the pro-democracy movement and appeared on posters during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. During the 1989 protests and subsequent shootings, Bei Dao was at a literary conference in Berlin and was not allowed to return to China until 2006. (Three other leading Misty Poets — Gu Cheng, Duo Duo, and Yang Lian — were also exiled.) His then wife, Shao Fei, and their daughter were not allowed to leave China to join him for another six years.
Since 1987, Bei Dao has lived and taught in England, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and the United States. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages, including five poetry volumes in English[7] along with the story collection Waves (1990) and the essay collections Blue House (2000) and Midnight's Gate (2005). Bei Dao continued his work in exile. His work has been included in anthologies such as The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry Since the Cultural Revolution (1990)[8] and Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese poetry.[9]
Bei Dao has won numerous awards, including the Tucholsky Prize from Swedish PEN, International Poetry Argana Award from the House of Poetry in Morocco and the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. He is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Jintian was resurrected in Stockholm in 1990 as a forum for expatriate Chinese writers. He has taught and lectured at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Beloit College, Wisconsin, and is Professor of Humanities in the Center for East Asian Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Bei Dao ("Northern Island") is another name for Zhifu Island.
Bei Dao literally "Northern Island", born August 2, 1949) is the pen name of Chinese poet Zhao Zhenkai. He was born in Beijing. He chose the pen name because he came from the north and because of his preference for solitude. Bei Dao is the most notable representative of the Misty Poets, a group of Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution.
As a teenager, Bei Dao was a member of the Red Guards, the enthusiastic followers of Mao Zedong who enforced the dictates of the Cultural Revolution, often through violent means. He had misgivings about the Revolution and was "re-educated" as a construction worker, from 1969 to 1980.[5] Bei Dao and Mang Ke founded the magazine Jintian[6] (Today), the central publication of the Misty Poets, which was published from 1978 until 1980, when it was banned. The work of the Misty Poets and Bei Dao in particular were an inspiration to pro-democracy movements in China. Most notable was his poem "Huida" ("The Answer") which was written during the 1976 Tiananmen demonstrations in which he participated. The poem was taken up as a defiant anthem of the pro-democracy movement and appeared on posters during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. During the 1989 protests and subsequent shootings, Bei Dao was at a literary conference in Berlin and was not allowed to return to China until 2006. (Three other leading Misty Poets — Gu Cheng, Duo Duo, and Yang Lian — were also exiled.) His then wife, Shao Fei, and their daughter were not allowed to leave China to join him for another six years.
Since 1987, Bei Dao has lived and taught in England, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and the United States. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages, including five poetry volumes in English[7] along with the story collection Waves (1990) and the essay collections Blue House (2000) and Midnight's Gate (2005). Bei Dao continued his work in exile. His work has been included in anthologies such as The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry Since the Cultural Revolution (1990)[8] and Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese poetry.[9]
Bei Dao has won numerous awards, including the Tucholsky Prize from Swedish PEN, International Poetry Argana Award from the House of Poetry in Morocco and the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. He is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Jintian was resurrected in Stockholm in 1990 as a forum for expatriate Chinese writers. He has taught and lectured at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Beloit College, Wisconsin, and is Professor of Humanities in the Center for East Asian Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 24, 2024
4.25! Powerful little pieces of writing. I picked this up in a secondhand store because I liked the cover, the poems inside are equally beautiful, transient, and elusive.
June 23, 2020
Powerful and delightful in equal measures.
June 12, 2009
One of the most haunting books of poetry about living in exile. His epiphanies rampage to the surface like any soul who has lost so much of what he loves. "Where there's truth, there's forgetfulness"
Here's one of my favorites from the collection:
I speak Chinese to the mirror
a park has its own winter
I put on music
winter is free of flies
I make coffee unhurriedly
flies don't understand what's meant by a native land
I add a little sugar
a native land is a kind of local accent
I hear my fright
on the other end of a phone line
This book is broken into 3 sections, each section a different city the poet has lived in while in exile: Berlin, Oslo, Stockholm. He was in Berlin when the Tiananmen Square massacre happened in June of 1989, and you feel his incredible pain for this, and more, here.
"the bird's nest is empty
it is time to reveal the secret"
CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com
Here's one of my favorites from the collection:
I speak Chinese to the mirror
a park has its own winter
I put on music
winter is free of flies
I make coffee unhurriedly
flies don't understand what's meant by a native land
I add a little sugar
a native land is a kind of local accent
I hear my fright
on the other end of a phone line
This book is broken into 3 sections, each section a different city the poet has lived in while in exile: Berlin, Oslo, Stockholm. He was in Berlin when the Tiananmen Square massacre happened in June of 1989, and you feel his incredible pain for this, and more, here.
"the bird's nest is empty
it is time to reveal the secret"
CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com
September 2, 2010
There's a line or two that ruminate through my mind from this volume from time to time - such as "the road back is even further away" (from "Requiem").
This is well worth the read if you can locate a copy. I happened across mine at a bulk book sale.
This is well worth the read if you can locate a copy. I happened across mine at a bulk book sale.
July 26, 2014
I really want to like this more. Some great imagery and fascinating time speaking about Tiananmen Square. I wonder how it reads in its original Chinese.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews