Besides the excellent works of prose featured in the back issue (Winter 2008) of Asia Literary Review I recently read, there are on its pages some really nice works of poetry and art. I am no expert on the visual arts (far from it), but I really enjoyed Karen CL Cheung’s photo essay covering Chen Guang Ming’s series of paintings entitled Miners. The oil on canvas pieces do a fantastic job of capturing a glimpse into the lives of a segment of China’s society that is often overlooked — living a life practically buried under the earth of that huge nation — the coal miners in the north. Cheung’s essay adds some depth to the viewer’s understanding of the subjects pictured, while the paintings offer a lot of heart. It is a very nice combination.

The Chinese poets who appear in the issue are Shen Hao Bo and Yao Feng. Shen was born from Jiangsu province, and currently lives in Beijing. Yao, having studied at Beijing Foreign Studies University, serves as assistant professor in the Portuguese department of the University of Macau. This was the first time I read the work of either poet. Both poems are translated by Luo Hui.

Shen’s “Snow by the Wall” uses the metaphor of snow near a wall alongside a city street, but quickly turns it to “the cancer of snow.” The tone is a little too prose-y for my taste, but I am not sure whether that is a problem of the original or the translation. Seeing the translation of Yao’s work, I have to think that Luo has followed the original with the rather straightforward-sounding lines of Shen’s work.

Yao’s poem sounds a little more like verse, with syntax that sometimes disrupts rather than closely following typical speech patterns. The thought of the poem, however, is presented in a rather straightforward manner, seeming to leave little space for the reader. This is, though, perhaps a little deceptive. Upon multiple readings of the poem, I’ve found more there than I first thought — that the poem says more than it seems to on its surface. The opening line reads, “A friend visited me in the ancient city.” I am not sure what ancient city Yao imagined for his poem, but Suzhou immediately came to mind, since I’ve been working overtime this week on the Suzhou travel guide I’ve been engaged to write. Images of “the view in the distance” one would expect to see from Suzhou popped into my head, and added something to my reading of the poem. While the verse doesn’t seem to turn much — or at least, not very subtly — there is something in the way the poem ends that does actually open up space for the reader’s contemplation on the image drawn by the piece.

Overall, I actually enjoyed the prose and paintings by Chinese writers/artists more than I did the poetry in this particular issue of Asia Literary Review. But one way or another, there’s plenty of fine writing in the journal, by writers from China and other parts of Asia. I’ve got a few other back issues I’m eager to get to, having finished this one.