Monthly Archives: April 2013
POETRY@TECH REVIEW: MCEVER, WRIGLEY & ADDONIZIO
I really like this Poetry@Tech reading. It was very different from the poetry reading events I attended before. The three poets all had their own personalities. The first poet, Bruce McEver, was exotic. His poems about China gave me a brand new feeling of China, and let me know what China is like in the eyes of western people. However, he lacked connection with the audience. His reading was not engaging enough as well. He wasn’t skilled in presenting the poems and made me felt like he was simply reading the poems. The second poet, Robert Wrigley, was the best among the three readers in my opinion. His poems were beautiful and amazing. I was especially moved by the one in which he wrote about the forest. The whole poem was so pictorial that I could almost see the scenes depicted in the poem if I closed my eyes. He’s more skilled in presenting his poems than McEver. His confidence made his voice convincing and thus strengthened the poems’ impact on the audience. He didn’t make many pauses during his recitation. Usually I’d say this is not good because this doesn’t allow the audience to think and appreciate the poems. However, this rule obviously didn’t fit in Wrigley’s recitation. The lack of intervals created continuity for the recitation of his poems. I would say Wrigley wisely chose the recitation mode that fitted his works best. He was also good at bringing jokes into his work so that the audience didn’t feel boring. The last poet, Kim Addonizi was definitely the most impressing one. Her harmonica won her the audience’s attention and favor. It was very creative and effective to reveal her emotions in the poems utilizing harmonica. Addonizi was also a quite emotive reciter. She mastered her pace and tone during her recitation. Overall, I really had a good time at the reading and will go to the readings next year.
“Second Recitation” Proposal
For the second poetry recitation, Tianxiao and I decide to cooperate on this project. Since we are both Chinese, we hope to spread Chinese culture and be unique among all the creations by our classmates. We are planning to recite the famous poem “Bring in the Wine” by one of the greatest poets in China’s history, Li Bai.
This poem is basically a poem that tries to persuade a friend to drink more wine on a party. However, the poem would not become one of Li Bai’s greatest works if it’s only about wine. Li Bai expressed his concerns about time and life in this poem. His unconventional and mostly-positive thoughts are quite optimistic and encouraging. However, the poem was actually written when he’s experiencing a career failure. We can still sense some disappointment in it.
This is a poem full of imposing atmosphere and exquisite emotions. If we only recite it, the strong emotion and atmosphere in it could not be released. 1. So we will combine visual and auditory aspects. We are going to find music tracks and videos about poem. We are still considering about whether we will record our recitation of the poem and mix it with the music and videos. Reading it loud makes more sense, but recording may perform better than a live show. 2. We find an English translation for “Bring in the Wine”. However, this version has some flaws that could be improved. We choose to revise the translation by ourselves. It’s a bold but also fruitful, if it works well, decision. 3. Although the poem has been translated, the immense difference in culture makes our artifact hard to be understood. So we will still add subtitles to the artifact, so that our audience can comprehend better in the general. 4. We are also considering in reciting the poem in Chinese. In our opinion, Chinese can express the essence of poem. And we also think emotions have no national boundaries, if we catch the point of the poem and perform it properly, our audience can comprehend. This is really a risk, since none of our audience understands Chinese.
After all, we have to focus on how to pass the ideas in the poem to our classmates. Everything should work for this purpose.
See how the Yellow River’s water move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean,never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
… Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin a thousand of pieces of silver, all of them come back!
Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite,
And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!
… To the old master, Tsen,
And the young scholar, Tan-chiu,
Bring in the wine!
Let your cups never rest!
Let me sing you a song!
Let your ears attend!
What are bell and drum, rare dishes and treasure?
Let me br forever drunk and never come to reason!
Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,
And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.
… Prince Chen paid at a banquet in the Palace of
Perfection
Ten thousand coins for a cask of wine, with many a laugh and quip.
Why say, my host, that your money is gone?
Go and buy wine and we’ll drink it together!
My flower-dappled horse,
My furs worth a thousand,
Hand them to the boy to exchange for good wine,
And we’ll drown away the woes of ten thousand generation!
After discussing it with our professor, we decided to find another poem because of its long length and difficulty in translation and interpretation. We found a better poem called “Drinking Alone with the Moon,” which is also by the same author Li Bai. This poem was much shorter and easier to interpret. However, the English translations we googled were not very helpful, but our native Chinese speaking group members and I were able to make a very well thought-out translation. We focused a lot of time on writing this translation because even though this is a very famous Chinese poem, it is still crucial for our English speaking audience to appreciate it in the same manner. In order to keep the authenticity of the poem, we decided to narrate the poem in Chinese but also have English subtitles and to use Chinese (or just meditative) music to match the mood of the poem. We then made a storyboard of what to film. After exploring different ways of interpreting our poem, we decided the video would be about the life a Georgia Tech student and his struggle with studying and procrastination. The video would include both a reality state, in which he is always studying and drinking coffee, and a dream state, in which he falls asleep or daydreams of what it is like to live life ( I have marked these places in the poem below). To make the video more interesting, we decided to differentiate between these two states by filming the student in the reality state and then create animated drawings to represent the dream state.Drinking Alone with the Moon.
(REALITY)
From a pot of wine among the flowers
I drank alone. There was no one with me –
(IMAGINARY) Till, raising my cup, I invited the bright moon
To bring me my shadow and make us three.
(REALITY) Alas, the moon was unable to drink
And my shadow tagged along with me vacantly;
(IMAGINARY) But still, for a while, I had these friends
To cheer me until the end of spring….
I sang. The moon encouraged me.
I danced. My shadow tumbled after.
And for as long as I knew, we were joyful companions.
(REALITY)
Then I realized I was drunk, and we lost one another.
ariayh 