{"product_id":"9789629968007","title":"Wild Geese Returning: Chinese Reversible Poems","description":"\u003ctable\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor\/Contributor(s):\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003eMetail, Michele; Gladding, Jody; Yang, Jeffrey\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNew York Review Books\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDate:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e3\/14\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBinding:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003ePaperback\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003eNEW\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e\u003cb\u003eA breathtaking introduction to Chinese multidirectional poems, told through the story of Su Hui, the greatest writer of these poems who embroidered a silk with 840 characters--equaling as many as 12,000 multidirectional poems--for her distant husband.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor nearly two thousand years, the condensed language of classical  Chinese has offered the possibility of writing poems that may be read  both forward and backward, producing entirely different creations. The  genre was known as the “flight of wild geese,” and the poems were often  symbolically or literally sent to a distant lover, in the hope that he  or she, like the migrating birds, would return.\u003cbr\u003e Its greatest practitioner, and the focus of this critical anthology,  is Su Hui, a woman who, in the fourth century, embroidered a silk for  her distant husband consisting of a grid of 840 characters. No one has  ever fully explored all of its possibilities, but it is estimated that  the poem—and the poems within the poem—may be read as many as twelve  thousand ways. Su Hui herself said, “As it lingers aimlessly, twisting  and turning, it takes on a pattern of its own. No one but my beloved can  be sure of comprehending it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With examples ranging from the third to the nineteenth centuries,  Michèle Métail brings the scholarship of a Sinologist and the  playfulness of an avant-gardist to this unique collection of perhaps the  most ancient of experimental poems.","brand":"New York Review Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43374886617343,"sku":"9789629968007","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0452\/0886\/2873\/files\/9789629968007_s600x595.jpg?v=1782315126","url":"https:\/\/massivebookshop.com\/products\/9789629968007","provider":"MASSIVE BOOKSHOP","version":"1.0","type":"link"}