© Coiscéim, 2004
This is a selection from the work of almost forty years. From the early short lyrics to the long title-poem, which reads like a modern, Buddhist version of Dante, these poems are rich, varied, sometimes challenging and always exhilarating. Unencumbered by the protective irony which so many western poets find it necessary to distance themselves with, Zhang Ye explores the sometimes tortuous paths of her own life and emotions, while also confronting some of the horrors which seem to have defined so much of the twentieth century. There is an intense sense of spirituality in the poems which is heightened by the immediacy and vividness of their settings. These poems present us with a person, a century and a society whose enormous changes are reflected, sometimes obliquely, in work of enormous originality and imagination.
This work was published bilingually, with the Irish translation by poet and translator Gabriel Rosenstock.
Coiscéim 2004
Translated into: English & Irish
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