Classical Chinese Poetry and its Influence on American Poetry: A Re-Viewing

Who This Is For

Anyone interested in poetry, translation, and classical Chinese poetics.

Course Description

A century after Ezra Pound published Fenollosa’s essay on the Chinese ideogram - which would go on to influence Modernism - it’s widely accepted that much of what Pound understood of classical Chinese poetry was a mistranslation. How would contemporary American poetry be different if Pound had understood classical Chinese poetry on its own terms? What if, like the movie Everything, Everywhere All At Once, we lived in a multiverse where Pound had also published Ernest Fenollosa’s second essay on the sounds, rhythms, rhymes, and meters of classical Chinese poetry? How would we then understand classical Chinese poetry? How might we then understand contemporary American poetry?

In this 6 week online course, we’re going to project ourselves into a multiverse and consider classical Chinese poetics through its own lens. Using the quatrain form jue ju 絕句 (“cut off” verse) as a frame, we will consider elements of classical Chinese poetics left out by Pound, as well as those that went on to influence contemporary American poetry, consciously or unconsciously. The class will begin with a reconsideration of the transmission of history of classical Chinese poetics into English and an introduction to classical Chinese characters, language, philosophy, cosmology, poetics, and aesthetics. We will then examine jue ju on its own terms and consider its current and potential influence on contemporary American poetry through three craft elements: the image (visuo-sonics and “inanimation”), structure (bi xing 比興 and qi cheng zhuan he 起承转合), and the gap (the void). Texts will possibly include poems from Wang Wei 王維, Du Fu 杜甫, Li Shang Yin 李商隱, Li Bai 李白, Li Qing Zhao 李清照, Victoria Chang, Layli Long Soldier, Harryette Mullen, Etel Adnan, Jenny Xie, Jake Skeets, Bei Dao, Hala Alyan, Wendy Xu, Marilyn Chin, Arthur Sze, Louise Glück, Lyn Hejinian, and Aditi Machado. Most weeks will feature a writing exercise designed to help students work towards the writing of a poem to workshop in the final week.

Instructor(s)

• Nicole W. Lee

  Nicole W. Lee is a poet born in Sydney, Australia to Chinese (Teochew and Hakka) Malaysian parents. Her Pushcart Prize nominated poetry has been published in Agni, Crazyhorse (now swamp pink), Gulf Coast, Meanjin, and others, and has received support from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Tin House Writers Workshops, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, AWP, and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. Nicole is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and assistant poetry editor at Four Way Review. Her long poetic sequence “Deluge: A Chinese Almanac” is the winner of the 2024 Palette Poetry Previously Published Poem Prize and is currently being adapted for the screen. For more, visit nicolewlee.com.