Sea Summit: Poems

＂Full of nuanced and subtle scene-making.＂ --WAYNE MILLER

Influenced by both the ＂gray, sinister sea＂ near the village where Yi Lu grew up during the Cultural Revolution, and the beauty of the sea in the books she read as a child, Sea Summit is a collection of paradox and questioning. The sea is an impossible force to the poet: it is both a majestic presence that predates man, and something to carry with us wherever we go, to be put ＂by an ancient rattan chair,＂ so we can watch ＂its waves toss＂ from above. Exploring the current ecological crisis and our complicated relationship to the wildness around us, Yi Lu finds something more complex than a traditional nature poet might in the mysterious connection between herself and the forces of nature represented by the boundless ocean.

Translated brilliantly by the acclaimed poet Fiona Sze-Lorrain, this collection of poems introduces an important contemporary Chinese poet to English-language readers.

Yi Lu is a theater scenographer who leads a parallel life as a poet. Born in 1956, she is the author of five books of poetry, including the award-winning titles, See (2004) and Using Two Seas (2009). Her fifth volume, Forever Lingering (2011), was published by Culture and Art Press in Beijing. Yi is known for her elegant and distilled lyrical voice, as well as her ecological awareness. Her honors include the Hundred Flowers Award for Literature and other distinguished literary prizes from Fujian province. A theatrical stage and set designer at the People’s Art Theatre in Fujian, she lives in the southern coastal city of Fuzhou.

Fiona Sze-Lorrain writes and translates in English, French, and Chinese. Her new poetry collection, The Ruined Elegance (2016), is published by Princeton University Press in the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets. The author of two previous titles, My Funeral Gondola (2013) and Water the Moon (2010), as well as several translations of contemporary Chinese, French, and American poets, she is a zheng harpist and an editor at Vif Éditions. She lives in Paris, France.

Melissa Kwasny is the author of five books of poems, including, most recently, Pictograph (2015), The Nine Senses (2011), and Reading Novalis in Montana (2009), all from Milkweed Editions. Her book of essays, Earth Recitals: Essays on Image and Vision, was published by Lynx House Press in 2013. She lives in the Elkhorn Mountains of western Montana.