Broadsided July 1, 2010: 'Replying to SubPrefect Zhang'

Happy July -

This month, a three-way collaboration: poet, translator, and artist.

"Replying to SubPrefect Zhang"
Poem by Wang Wei, Translation by Dawn McGuire, Art by Yuko Adachi

Writer Wang Wei was the "Poet Buddha" of the extraordinary Tang Dynasty, when poetry was the center of Chinese cultural life. Along with Du Fu and Li Bai, Wang Wei remains a treasured poet, still read and memorized--and translated--1300 years later.
Artist Yuko Adachi is a Tokyo-born artist who was raised in Japan, Paris, London, and the United States of America. She has been painting since she was a little girl and has been showing her works through solo and selected group shows internationally. Her painting was featured for the cover of Artscope, New England's Cultural Magazine (May/June 2007) and Takara Magazine, the Japanese Culture and Information Magazine in New England (2007 issues). In 2007, her work was awarded best in painting for "Healing Power of Art" by Manhattan Art International. Today, she lives and works in Boston. She has just opened an artist studio store, "Planet MOMEKO," in Ropckport, MA.
Translator Dawn McGuire was born in Grayson, Kentucky, in the foothills of the Appalachians. Her latest book, Hands On, was published by ZYZZYVA in 2002. "By day," she is a San Francisco neurologist focusing on complications of HIV/AIDS. McGuire studied Chinese at Princeton University and Middlebury College. McGuire believes there is no such thing as "the" translation of a Tang Dynasty poem. Poetic compression is extreme--a typical Tang poem might have only 20 words in all--and inflectional aspects of English such as tense, person, number are absent. A given word (character) easily may have a dozen meanings, and the poem may be a conversation with a poet of a thousand years before, or a contemporary such as SubPrefect Zhang. Each translation, also, is a conversation, and a bow.

Collaborators' Q&A:
I had no idea what to expect. The reference to Asian landscape paintings of the Tang is very neat, especially sing Wang Wei was also a painter, and founded the Southern school.
Read more of what Dawn and Yuko had to say about their Broadsided experience.

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'i can't tell you how good it feels to share poetry with as many people as possible. Thank you for giving me the oppurtunity. This pic is of 'at the christmas party for infectous disease' posted at the Astor Place stop for the 6 train. '-j Send us your pictures from Vectorhood!

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Broadsided July 1, 2010: 'Replying to SubPrefect Zhang'