This afternoon, the Simmons College Contemporary Chinese
Poetry Conference came to an end, dispersing two dozen Chinese-language poets out
into the world. (Watch out, world!) Some are headed back to the mainland or Taiwan
or Hong Kong, some are traveling to New York or California, and a golden
few are taking the opportunity to swing by Mexico while in
the
hemisphere. One of those going on to the
land of Corona happens to be our oldest participant, Qi Weiguo 齊衛國, who, at a spry 82, insisted on holding the door open for his fellow poets.
At the other end of the age and poetic style spectrum were Ye Mimi from
Taiwan (left) and Kelly Tsai from Brooklyn (right), who added much flair to
our Saturday night reading. Kelly’s
political performance poetry and Ye Mimi’s witty, surrealistic poems set to
music provided a fantastic opportunity to see into the future of Chinese and
Chinese-American poetry, as well as raising the unanswerable question of what constitutes
‘Chinese poetry’.
And here’s how I spent most of the conference: crouched in the corner
with a famous poet (in this case Beijing-based poet and critic Zhou Zan 周瓒, who, by the way, will be
appearing at Wesleyan College this Tuesday), trying to solve problems like how
the heck to get a file from one computer onto another language-incompatible
computer.
It was sad to see so much artistic brainpower leave the building,
but chances are very good Professor Afaa Michael Weaver will accept Simmons College’s
invitation to do it all again in two years. I hope to be there as well! –EG 顾爱玲