Jonathan Stalling, October 13, 2012

Saturday, October 13, 2012 at 7 p.m. Jonathan Stalling read at Counterpath from Yíngelìshi: Sinophonic English Poetry and Poetics (Counterpath, 2011), as well as Grotto Heaven: A Revised Grammar Book (Chax Press), and new work. (Unfortunately this video is truncated.)

Marjorie Perloff on Yíngelìshi: “Two seemingly alien languages interact, collide, call each other into question and create a soundscape unique among contemporary poems. Its ‘Yingeleshi’ texture (fusing English words, Chinese calligraphy, and instrumental accompaniment) produces an entirely new experience for the reader, pointing the way to what a truly global poetry might look like.”

Jerome Rothenberg on Yíngelìshi: “a ravishingly beautiful series of poems both spoken & sung. I have now been going through these from a number of different directions, reading & listening, finding satisfactions, like those of all real poetry, that grow deeper & richer from one immersion to the next. Yíngelìshi, once entered, has enough pleasures to last a reader’s lifetime.”Michelle Yeh on Yíngelìshi:

“Whereas the visuality of Chinese characters inspired Pound to renew American poetry, Jonathan Stalling finds an abundant creative resource in the sound of Chinese. The process of transforming Chinese pronunciations of elementary textbook English into evocative, beautiful poetry is nothing short of magic.”

Hank Lazer on Yíngelìshi: “Trust me: you will have a blissful, provocative 16:20 experience when you tune in to this intriguing operatic composition! For in the final analysis, I value Yíngelìshi so highly for the same reasons that I enjoy other forms of poetry: for the obvious integrity and thoughtfulness of the composition; for its adventurousness, beauty, and initial strangeness; and for the way that it repays re-reading and re-listening.”

Jonathan Stalling is an Assistant Professor of English Literature at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of Yingelishi: Sinophonic English Poetry and Poetics (Counterpath, 2011), Poetics of Emptiness: Transformations of Asian Thought in American Poetry (Fordham University Press, 2010), and a co-editor of The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, A Critical Edition (Fordham, 2008). He is also the author of a book of poems, Grotto Heaven: A Revised Grammar Book (Chax Press).