The volume Lyrical Experiments in Sinophone Verse: Time, Space, Bodies, and Things, edited by Justyna Jaguścik, Joanna Krenz, and Andrea Riemenschnitter (Amsterdam University Press, 2025) is now available in open access via the press website.
The 1919 May Fourth movement was the breeding ground for experiments by authors inspired by new world literary trends. Under Mao Zedong, folk songs accompanied political campaigns such as the Great Leap Forward. Misty Poetry of the 1980s contributed to the humanistic discourse of the post-Mao reform era. The most recent stage in Chinese poetry resonates with contemporary concerns, such as technological innovation, environmental degradation, socio-political transformations, and the return of geopolitical Cold War divisions. In search of creative responses to the crisis, poets frequently revisit the past while holding on to their poetic language of self-reflection and social critique. This volume identifies three foci in contemporary poetry discourses: formal crossovers, multiple realities, and liquid boundaries. These three themes often intersect within texts from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan discussed in the book.
Contributors (in alphabetical order): Nick Admussen, Dean Anthony Brink, Simona Gallo, Justyna Jaguścik, Joanna Krenz, Andrea Lingenfelter, Liansu Meng, Andrea Riemenschnitter, Chris Song, Maghiel van Crevel, Victor Vuilleumier, Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, Mary Shuk Han Wong, Zhiyi Yang, Michelle Yeh.
Contents:
Introduction – Justyna Jaguscik, Joanna Krenz, and Andrea Riemenschnitter – Treading a Tightrope: Chinese Poetry in the Modern World
I Multiple Realities
Chapter 1. Nick Admussen – The Death of Transnational Time: Locality, Reader Response, and the Strange Loop
Chapter 2. Liansu Meng – Redefining Family Women: The Ecofeminist Poetics of Shu Ting and Wang Xiaoni
Chapter 3. Andrea Lingenfelter – “Green mountains, green history, who will bear witness?” A Womanʼs Montage: Zhai Yongmingʼs Following Huang Gongwang through the Fuchun Mountains
Chapter 4. Andrea Riemenschnitter – Deep Lyricism: Yu Jianʼs “On the Ancient Road of Hubeiʼs Xishui County: A Detour”
Chapter 5. Joanna Krenz – From a Poetry Popsicle to a Polymathic Herstorian: Xiao Bingʼs “Possible Worlds” Through the Lens of Critical Code Studies
II Formal Crossovers
Chapter 6. Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik – Lu Xun and Kuriyagawa Hakuson: Reading “Dead Fire” and “After Death”
Chapter 7. Victor Vuilleumier – Ma Junwuʼs Reinvented Lyricism: Revolutionary Landscape, Romanticism, Science Fiction, and Darwinian Geology
Chapter 8. Zhiyi Yang – To “World Poetry” and Back: Xutangʼs Classicist Lyricism and the Ethnic Digital Bookshelf
Chapter 9. Michelle Yeh – Nativism Revisited: Paradoxes in Modern Poetry in Taiwan
Chapter 10. Dean Anthony Brink – Processing Strangers as Vital Jouissance in Hsia Yüʼs First Person
III Liquid Boundaries
Chapter 11. Simona Gallo – “I Sing of Flesh”: The Rhythm of Mu Danʼs Self-translation
Chapter 12. Mary Shuk Han Wong – Dark Tourism: Leung Ping-kwanʼs Eastern European Journeys in 1990 and 1991
Chapter 13. Chris Song – Hong Kongʼs Leftist Poetry: Sinophone and/or Huawen?
Chapter 14. Maghiel van Crevel – Poetry and Subalternity: What Are We Looking for?
Chapter 15. Justyna Jaguscik – Wu Xiaʼs Poetics of Affect
The volume is currently available for purchase via the press website, with a 20% discount code “AUP20”, valid until 30th June 2025:
https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789048559978/lyrical-experiments-in-sinophone-verse
Posted by: Justyna Jaguscik justyna.jaguscik@unibe.ch