The earthquake disaster is on everybody's mind here and every time our hosts lapse into Chinese sidebar conversation, our translator tells me they're discussing the recovery operation. The numbers are staggering and continue to be revised upward; last night it was 34K plus dead. Over 360,000 have been evacuated. To where? And it's only in the last day or so that rescuers have been able to get to some of the more remote areas where roads were completely destroyed. Entire ethnic groups have been wiped out.
One of our hosts, a well-known poet, is also the editor of The Jinan Daily and we are honored that he has taken time from his schedule to be with us to discuss poetry. I wonder if the news coverage of the earthquake has fallen off the front pages at home; here, it is non-stop on every television station. In general, people seem satisfied with the government's rescue operation and are grateful for the assistance from neighboring countries. Questions about building quality will be raised later.
Last night, after dinner, David met with about 15 Shandong province poets to discuss American and Chinese poetry. To say there was a significant language barrier would be an understatement. Still, the poets managed serious conversations and our Chinese hosts and their guests were quite familiar with such poets as Robert Bly, Mark Strand, Ted Berrigan, Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, and Elizabeth Bishop. (I was somewhat dismayed to see that some of their information came from Wikipedia, which I know to be rife with inaccuracies.) One poet in our presence is referred to as the Elizabeth Bishop of China. She gave some of her poems to us and we're hoping we can share them with you after consulting with her later today.
When the group discussion turned to the practice of writing poetry, and David remarked that writing poetry for him is an adventure, that he doesn't know where a poem will end up when he starts, that he often writes poetry to work out an idea, there was nodding all around. "Poets are the same everywhere," someone said.
Later today we meet with three university presidents over lunch that I'm told will comprise food "not available in Beijing, not elsewhere in Shandong, and especially NOT in New York." I'm already hungry.
— sdh