Grass Roots - Yang, Xiang

Xiang Yang's poetry stands as elegant testimony to the Taiwan experience. The author of seven volumes of poetry in his younger years, he has, since the publication of The Four Seasons (1986), published but a single collection titled Chaos, in 2005. In the intervening years, he earned a PhD in journalism and moved into academia. He is also an established woodblock artist.

John Balcom, PhD., is a translator of Chinese literature. Recent publications include Frontier Taiwan: An Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry (contributor), Wintry Night by Li Qiao (co-translator), The City Trilogy by Chang His-kuo, Taiwan's Indigenous Writers: An Anthology of Stories, Essays, and Poems, which has received the 2006 Northern California Book Award. He translated Driftwood and Stone Cell, both by Lo Fu, which were published by Zephyr Press.

Contents

xi Introduction
xvii Acknowledgments


Ten-line Poems
?? 3 Listening to the Rain
?? 5 Thinking of a Friend
?? 7 Train Station
?? 9 Drinking Alone
?? 11 Mountain Moon
?? 13 The Fog Falls
?? 15 Forest
?? 17 Grass Roots
?? 19 My Cares
?? 21 Seed
?? 23 Autumn Words
?? 25 Stand
?? 27 Uniform
?? 29 Cold Current

Dialect Poems
??? 33 Dad's Lunchbox
??
???? 35 His Honor, Mr. Assemblyman,
??? Is Not at Home
???? 37 The Village Chief Wants to Build
??? a Bridge
??? 41 Nine to Five



A Miscellany
???? 45 Passing through a Small Station at Night,
?? Listening to the Rain
???? 47 Time Follows
?? 49 Chrysanthemum Sigh
???? 51 The Soil and the Flower
???? 55 Discovering ??
? 59 Chaos
?? 63 Mountain Road

The Four Seasons
?? 69 Beginning of Spring
?? 71 The Rains
?? 73 Waking of Insects
?? 75 Vernal Equinox
?? 77 Tomb Sweeping
?? 79 Grain Rain

?? 83 Beginning of Summer
?? 85 Lesser Fullness of Grain
?? 87 Grain in Ear
?? 89 Summer Solstice
?? 91 Lesser Heat
?? 93 Great Heat

?? 97 Beginning of Autumn
?? 99 The Limit of Heat
?? 101 White Dew
?? 103 Autumn Equinox
?? 105 Cold Dew
?? 107 Hoar Frost

?? 111 Beginning of Winter
?? 113 Lesser Snow
?? 115 Great Snow
?? 117 Winter Solstice
?? 119 Lesser Cold
?? 121 Great Cold