Ten Poems of Mato Kosyk (1853–1940) Translated and Introduced

Abstract

Mato Kosyk, the foremost Lower Sorbian (Lower Wendish) poet, was born in 1853 in Werben, fifty miles south-east of Berlin. Despite the limits of his literary inheritance (mainly devotional texts and folklore) he began in his mid twenties to produce secular lyric poetry in profusion. At the age of thirty he emigrated to the USA, where he became a Lutheran pastor, but his poetic activity was interrupted only by his death in 1940. The ten poems of which translations are appended to the article span a period of over fifty years and reflect various chapters in the poet's life story. An unusual feature is the juxtaposition of Sorbian and American themes.     

Frank O'Hara in New York Race relations,poetic situations,postcolonial space

Abstract

Frank O'Hara's 1958 poem 'Ode: Salute to the French Negro Poets' cites 'race' as 'the poetic ground on which we rear our smiles', a phrase that points to both domestic and international contexts for reading this New York poet. At the same time, 'race' has a history of specific valences in O'Hara's work – as a focus of exoticized images of desire, aesthetic fulfillment, and social energy. Further, race, inflected through various colonial screens, becomes the central avenue leading toward O'Hara's project of rewriting the parameters of social space in poetry, a radical aestheticization not just of landscape but of social relations, with a consequent socialization of the act of writing. This article explores O'Hara's spatial poetics through the terms of Situationist theory, in which the techniques of dérive and détournement are applied to a reading of the poet's active suspension of the 'rules' of a gridded and hierarchical social order.     

'Becalmed on Strange Waters': Wordsworth,Reagan and Late Ashbery

Abstract

This essay presents an analysis of 'A Wave', the watershed poem of Ashbery's later career, as a Wordsworthian response, in the medium of the romantic crisis poem, to the rise of Reagan and neo-liberalism. 'A Wave' was composed between 1982 and 1984 amid drastic changes to US domestic and foreign policy that aggravate the necessity for a change in poetic stance from the newly 'central' American poet Ashbery had become. In this context, the relationship is explored between 'A Wave' and a poet similarly engaged in articulating crises of social conscience as part of a more specific development of poetic personality. 'A Wave', then, is read as a reading of Wordsworth's Prelude. In this, the particular stylistic issue of Ashberyan metaphor is raised, as 'A Wave', for the first time within Ashbery's reading of romanticism, begins to position irony at the centre of romantic metaphor. Finally, I conclude that the result of Ashbery's wavering crisis poem is a positioning of style as the ultimate determinant of social self-identity.     

Assessing the use of back translation: the shortcomings of back translation as a quality testing method

Abstract

Back translation – the ‘re-translation’ of a translated questionnaire back into the original language and the subsequent comparison of the original version and the back translation – is a controversial assessment method for questionnaire translations. Recently, cross-cultural survey methodologists have followed the call for more empirical research on this method. This article adds to the small body of research by drawing on the back translation documentation from the 2012 European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS). First, results from the official EQLS back translation step are contrasted with results when additional persons perform the same comparison step between back translation and original. We note inconsistency in the detection of presumed flaws. Second, the back translation outcome is contrasted with additional native speaker checks of the actual translation. While back translation can uncover problems, it causes quite a number of false alarms, and even more importantly, many problems remain hidden.     

The image “lotus” in I gather lotus blooms across the steam

This paper analyzes the image"lotus"in the poetry,and the relationship between Caozhi and Nineteen ancient poems.By descriping the"lotus"in these two poems,this paper shows the beauty of the poem itself to readers and lead the readers to analyze this poem in a more multiple ways.     

An Analysis on the Application of “Three Beauties” Principle in the Translation of Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night

The movie Interstellar directed by Christopher Nolan enjoys a large scale of popularity at present.Meanwhile,the poem intoned in the movie plays a significant role in distilling the theme of the movie.This paper aims to examine how XuY uanchong’s"Three Beauties"principle are adopted by the two translators Wu Ningkun and GaoX iaosong by making a comparative study on the two Chinese versions of the classical poem Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night.By comparing the two Chinese versions of the poem,the paper discusses the advantages and limitations of XuY uanchong’s"Three Beauties"principle in translating English poems into Chinese ones.     

Writing of home and home of writing Chinese American diaspora and literary imagination

Abstract

The Silent Traveller's Hong Kong Zhuzhi Poems (1972) by Chiang Yee provides an interesting case for study in relation to Asian American literary theory aesthetics for at least the following three reasons: First, Chiang's poems comment on the 'idiosyncratic phenomena' in Hong Kong, and the ambiguity and sometimes contradictions in his comments allow us to explore the issues of assimilation and Americanization and to get a good understanding of the meaning of 'home' to a Chinese diasporic poet. Second, utilization of the zhuzhi form, a tradition that has been largely abandoned in modern China, suggests the intrinsic value of the cultural tradition and emotional or psychological satisfaction to a Chinese diaspora. Chiang's tenacious adherence to the cultural tradition is a reflection of his yearning for an imaginary 'home'. Third, the use of the Chinese language underlines the poet's Chinese cultural sensitivity. A discussion of the form, content, and language of these poems illustrates the complexity of Asian American cultural and ethnic identity and the significance of the imaginary 'home' – a construction through writing where a diaspora may find a haven in displacement.     

You Must Change Your Life

ABSTRACT

A translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “The Archaic Torso of Apollo” is offered in tribute to the memory of a cherished friend and mentor.     

Perceived Parent-Child Alienation

Abstract

Parental alienation refers to a parent's attempts to distance a child from the child's other parent. We examined (1) the effects of “feeling alienation” upon college students' recollections of their childhood relationships, (2) the effects of “feeling alienation” on perceptions of adult parent-child relationships, and (3) the likelihood of alienation in intact and divorced families. A sample of undergraduates (N = 227) completed the Relationship Distancing Questionnaire and numerous other relationship questionnaires. Results suggested feeling alienation is inversely related to the quality of parent-child relationships during childhood and young adulthood and can be found in intact as well as divorced families. Findings also indicate parental conflict is a better predictor of whether alienation occurs than parents' marital status is.     

The Bible Translation from the Perspective of Retranslation

In Western countries, as the carrier of the religious transmission, the Bible plays a irreplaceable role. From the beginning of the era to today, the translation of the Bible has never stopped. None can compare with the range of languages, the types of translations and the frequency of translations the Bible referred. As a common phenomenon, retranslation has received extensive attention in the translation field. This paper tries to explored evelopment course of different Bible translations and the causes of retranslation by illustrating famous translation versions of the Bible. Hope to provide translators with a new perspective to understand the retranslation.     

Immigrant/Minority Status and Alienation

Abstract

Seeking to clarify the relationship between immigrant/minority status and alienation, the theoretical elements of immigrant/minority status were first examined. Data gathered from a sample of Chinese-Americans was then used in a causal analysis incorporating these minority and immigrant characteristics as predictors of alienation. The data showed that the alienation of the Chinese-American was not uniformly and directly related to his minority and immigrant characteristics as previous researches indicated. Distinctive patterns of alienation were found with regard to foreign-born and the American-born Chinese. The analysis results suggest that the relationship between immigrant/minority characteristics and alienation is sufficiently complicated to warrant further investigation.     

little sister: An Afro-Temporal Solo-Play

ABSTRACT

little sister: An Afro-Temporal Solo-Play is at once a memory-scape and a mytho-biography set to poetry, movement, and mixed media. A performance poem spanning from the Antebellum South to present-moment Chicago, it tells the story of a nomadic spirit named little-she who shape-shifts through the memories and imaginings of her sister, the narrator. Through the characters little-she and the narrator, the solo-performance explores embodied ways to rupture and relieve the impact of macro forms of violence in the micro realm of the everyday. To this end, little sister witnesses and disrupts the legacy of violence in the lives of queer Black women through a trans-temporal navigation of everyday encounters within familial, small groups and intimate partner spaces.     

Poetic Labors and Challenging Political Science: An Epistolary Poem

ABSTRACT

The author, a political theorist, uses poetry to reflect on and spur structural change in admissions committees, hiring committees, funding decisions, curriculum development, and the institutionalized awards-making structure regarding African Politics in the American Political Science Association. This poem, delivered and performed at the American Political Science Association 2018 meeting in Boston, provides empirical and verifiable data about how scholarly awards are distributed in the discipline. The analysis of this process reflects on a long history of erasing, minimizing, and tokenizing the scholarship of African political scientists in the discipline of political science. Written as an epistolary poem, the author explains how #MeToo accounts for complex and interrelated forms of exclusion from the production of knowledge and uses the history of Black women in politics associations, writings by Patricia J. Williams, Pearl T. Robinson, Darlene Miller, and poetry by June Jordan (1936–2002) and Sweet Honey in the Rock (f. 1973).     

'The Sense of Taking Part': Feminist Environmental Ethics in the Poetry of Wisława Szymborska

Abstract

This essay examines the poetry of the Polish Nobel Prize-winning poet in the context of contemporary ecofeminist thought, especially the work of Karen J. Warren, Sandra Harding, and Anthony Weston. I propose to look at Szymborska's ecological ethics (her view of humanity and other species as equals), her epistemology (questioning and non-hierarchical thinking), and her formal practice (irony, humour, dialogic form, decentring of the human point of view) as consequential, logically interdependent elements of an underlying philosophical system. This system has its foundation in ecofeminist multicentrism: the view of the world as comprised of many centres, i.e. many moral agencies, human and more-than-human, and many points of view, all different yet of equal value. Ecofeminist philosophy provides a framework and a vocabulary that explains the provocative and puzzling aspects of Szymborska's poetry as elements of a strong political statement in defence of the earth and all beings that inhabit it.     

Allen Ginsberg’s Blakean Albion

Abstract

Focusing on a selection of poems written during Allen Ginsberg’s visits to Britain between 1958 and 1979, an attempt is made to show how Ginsberg’s British poetry might productively be read in the context of William Blake’s mythopoetic system, particularly in so far as it relates to the Blakean figures of Albion and Jerusalem. Ginsberg’s poetic vision of a Blakean Albion is revealed to be more complex, and more problematic, than might be supposed. This is partly because Ginsberg’s own position is conflicted; as a key representative of American Beat poetry and later of American counterculture, he is nonetheless engaged in these ‘British’ poems in re-envisioning and reshaping Blake’s Albion. Such nationalist tensions are not, however, restricted to Ginsberg’s work; they can also be linked to similar conflicts between nationalism and internationalism which already exist within Blake’s own vision of Albion.     

Neoconservative intellectuals and the limitations of governing The Reagan administration and the demise of the Cold War

Abstract

During the 1970s, the then-emerging 'neoconservatives' promoted a foreign policy of aggressive containment of the Soviet Union. Many of these neocons were subsequently appointed to the Reagan administration; however, despite the apparent ideological convergence between Reagan and the neoconservatives, his administration did not constitute an opportunity for them to fully implement their foreign policy vision. Their underlying principles were more rigid and absolutist than those of Reagan and rejected any kind of compromise. In contrast, Reagan's strategy had a pragmatic side to it, favouring agreements with Moscow on certain issues. This limited the contribution neoconservatives could make to policy and many of them became quickly disillusioned with Reagan.     

Sui Sin Far's American Words

Abstract

This essay offers readings of three stories from Sui Sin Far's 1912 collection Mrs. Spring Fragrance: the title story, 'The Americanizing of Pau Tsu', and '"Its Wavering Image."' Each of these stories treats an episode of romance in a multiracial society as, simultaneously, a problem of reading and of writing in a contested culture. Each turns on a quoted passage from a poem, by Tennyson, Ban Jieyu, and Longfellow, respectively. (For the latter two stories, the sources have not previously been identified in published criticism.) Analysis of Sui Sin Far's subtle and transformative engagements with literary works from several national traditions both reveals new complexities in her fiction and has the potential to revise current views of literary history.     

Editorial

Abstract

Examining the poetry of Allen Ginsberg in the light of that of John Keats, the possible connections between ‘Siesta in Xbalba’ — a long poem by Ginsberg that received much more critical attention in the eighties than today — and Keats’s so-called Great Odes are investigated. ‘Siesta’ is here read as a composite mainly recycling ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ and ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, whose themes and motifs Ginsberg both preserves and subverts. This is the first attempt to conflate ‘Siesta’ with Keats’s Great Odes.