Title: Sea Summit Author: Yi Lu Translator: Fiona Sze-Lorrain Publication Year of Translation: 2016 Publisher: Milkweed Editions Genre: poetry
This was an interesting collection of translated poems— I was especially taken to the focus on the environment, which is described as “ecopoetry” in the foreword by Melissa Kwasny. More importantly, though, Kwasny writes about these poems that “there is indeed a sense of contemporary unease between the speaker and the nonhuman forces of nature, as well as a sense of peril” that results in “an emphasis both on our current state of ecological crisis and our complicated history and relationship to nature.” To be honest, I didn’t really grasp the tensions that Kwansy speaks of, though that might be because these poems were delivered so subtly. It could also be an issue of translation—more specifically, things getting lost in translation—that this collection didn’t have the nuances that seem to exist in the original texts. I don’t think this is entirely the fault of the translator, who seems to have done what she can to be as faithful to Yi’s elegant writing, as well as providing some context about the poet and her intentions. It’s just the reality of text in translation—
In terms of enjoyment, I admit that I didn’t totally love it. I found some of the poems to be rather repetitive. I did think the final poem (“May You See the Splendor of Stars in This World”) was a beautiful way to conclude this collection though.