Intimate, historical, ruminative, musical, Wang Jiaxin is a major contemporary voice in world poetry. His new collection, At the Same Time, invites readers into a space where disparate times and cultures converge in luminous poetic dialogue. Weaving together themes of memory and exile, these intimate and historical meditations range from the literary figures of Du Fu and Akhmatova to far flung places such as Santorini and Long Island. Delicately attentive, they both witness the weight of history whilst exploring the transience of the everyday-a mode, perspective, a remedy to our disjointed times that only masterful poetry like this can administer.
Wang Jiaxin is a Chinese poet, essayist, and translator and has published
more than forty books.His work has had an important influence on Chi-
nese poetry and has been translated into many languages. His collection of
poems in English is Darkening Mirror (Tebot Bach, 2017), translated by
Diana Shi and George O'Connell, with a foreword by former US Poet Lau-
reate Robert Hass. His poems have been published in The American Poetry
Review, Words Without Borders, American Poets and The Kenyon Review,
and he has been a poet-in-residence at the Dutch Literary Foundation (Am-
sterdam, 2022) and at the International Writing Program at the University
of Iowa (2013). An esteemed translator of Yeats, Mandelstam, and espe-
cially of Paul Celan. He has won many domestic and international awards.
John Crespi, Director of Asian Studies at Colgate University, has extolled
his work: "Wang Jiaxin has exerted a far-reaching influence over contem-
porary Chinese poetry not just as a poet but also for his role as a critic and
translator. Wang's poetic voice stands out for the gravity, clarity, and resolve
with which it explores the individual's relation to history, destiny, cultural
inheritance, and humanity."Wang Jiaxin was born in Hubei province and
graduated from Wuhan University.He was a professor at Renmin University
of China for years--he now lives most of his time in New York.
