Heart Into Soil traverses landscapes of exile and identity, where memory appears as the ground of daily existence, and what is felt reveals the incompleteness of the present moment. From solidness to great emptiness, then back into solidness, memory, writing and the world exist in unstable liason. As the lyric impulse digs toward the root, origins are transformed and unbounded. Writing then becomes a means of location within shifting "plains of consciousness/ in a fullness of light/ where every object/ vanishes/ reappears/ metamorphoses."
Xue Di is a native of Beijing. After taking part in the 1989 demonstrations in Tian'anmen Square, he left China and, since 1990, has been a fellow in Brown University's "Freedom to Write" program. He has published two books of poems in Chinese, contributed to many magazines, and is also known as anthologist and critic. His collected poems and essays (3 volumes) are forthcoming in China.
Keith Waldrop's recent books of poems are Analogies of Escape and The Silhouette of a bridge (America Award, 1997). Wang Ping is the author of American Visa and Foreign Devil.
Heart Into Soil traverses landscapes of exile and identity, where memory appears as the ground of daily existence, and what is felt reveals the incompleteness of the present moment. From solidness to great emptiness, then back into solidness, memory, writing and the world exist in unstable liason. As the lyric impulse digs toward the root, origins are transformed and unbounded. Writing then becomes a means of location within shifting "plains of consciousness/ in a fullness of light/ where every object/ vanishes/ reappears/ metamorphoses."