Moonlight Rests in My Left Palm

Poems and Essays

Moonlight Rests in My Left Palm
Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Yu Xiuhua
RRP:
NZ$ 40.00
Our Price:
NZ$ 32.00
Hardback
h210 x 140mm - 156pg
7 Nov 2021 US
International import eta 7-19 days
9781662600470
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
Starting with the viral poem "Crossing Half of China to Fuck You," Yu Xiuhua' s raw collection chronicles her life as a disabled, divorced, single mother in rural China. Yu Xiuhua was born with cerebral palsy in Hengdian Village in the Hunan Province, in Southern China. Unable to attend college, travel, or work the land with her parents, Yu remained home where she could help with housework. Eventually she was forced into an arranged marriage that became abusive. She divorced her husband and moved back in with her parents, taking her son with her. In defiance of the stigma attached to her disability, her status as a divorced single mother, and as a peasant in rural China, Yu found her voice in poetry. Starting in the late 90' s, her writing became a vehicle with which to explore and share her reflections on homesickness, family and ancestry, the reality of disability in the context of a body' s urges and desires. Then, Yu' s poem "Crossing Half of China to Fuck You" blew open the doors on the patriarchal and traditionalist world of contemporary Chinese poetry. She became an internet sensation, finding a devoted following among young readers who enthusiastically welcomed her fresh, bold, confessional voice into the literary canon. Thematically organized, Yu' s essays and poems are in conversation with each other around subjects that include love, nostalgia, mortality, the natural world and writing itself.
Yu Xiuhua' s Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm, translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, grows out of highly personal terrain. This farmer-poet says in an essay (Moonlight is sectioned by eight lyrical essays): ' We have man-handled so many words that I only dream of using them anew. ' Yu says exactly what she means; and Sze-Lorrain honors the feeling and music in intimate translation. Thus, the poet' s language rises out of the natural, tinged by elemental soil and light. --Yusef Komunyakaa, author of Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth "' Truth once spoken tends to be false, ' writes Yu Xiuhua in her incredible debut of essays and poems. I am smitten with Yu' s powerful writing, erotic poetry, and reflections on disability in daily life. One poem reads, ' So risky, so heavy / O this love. ' I want nothing but risk in poetry and I feel proud to be a disabled poet in Yu' s company. " --The Cyborg Jillian Weise, author of Common Cyborg"I love reading these poems and essays by Yu Xiuhua. I feel befriended by them, by her. Courage, honesty, a love of words, and a wry sense of humor run through the pages of Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm, translated with grace and simplicity by Fiona Sze-Lorrain. When Yu writes in an essay, ' There is no better ode to life than a weed that grows ruthlessly and arches out of the ground, despite its trauma, ' we know she is telling us her own story. And yet, in a poem called ' Wheat Has Ripened, ' she says, ' I am pleased to have landed here / like a sparrow skirting through the sky-blue. ' How can we be anything but grateful to a poet who ends a poem of love lost: ' I still hope / to err over and over' ? " --Mary Helen Stefaniak, author of The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia"I couldn' t stop underlining phrases, sentences, whole passages that I wanted to quote, and think about! Yu Xiuhua' s marvelous collection, a hybrid of poetry and poetical essays, each reflecting back on the other, is a transport into the soul, heart, and sensibility of a unique and exquisite mind. Fiona Sze-Lorrain' s translation, generous with silence, space, and pitch-perfect transparency, is a triumph in its own right. This is the sort of book that you' ll want to share immediately with your most thoughtful friend. " --Minna Zallman Proctor, author of Landslide: True Stories, editor of The Literary Review, and translator of Natalia Ginzburg and Fleur Jaeggy
Born in 1976 in Hengdian, Hubei Province, China, Yu Xiuhua is a poet from an impoverished rural background who was born with cerebral palsy. Yu began writing poetry in 1998. In 2014, her poem "Crossing Half of China to Fuck You" became an online sensation, launching her career as a celebrity poet and writer. Her poetry collection Moonlight Falls on My Left Hand (Guangxi Normal University Press, 2015) sold over 10,000 copies, a record for Chinese poetry titles of the past two decades. Yu received the Peasant Literature Award in 2016. Still Tomorrow, an award-winning documentary film about her life and poetry, was released to critical acclaim the same year. She was also the recipient of the Hubei Literary Prize in 2018.
Status: Indent title, imported to order
ISBN-13: 9781662600470
Published: 7 Nov 2021
Published In: United States
Imprint: Minedition (Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc)
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Format: Hardback
Height: 210mm
Width: 140mm
Pages: 156

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