Dennis Vincent Brutus, China Poems

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Dennis Brutus’ seventh volume is unified by his experiments with the Chinese

Chueh chu

(i.e., stop short or severed sentence) form, an antecedent of the Japanese

haiku

. The booklet’s 36 pages contain 27 poems (not all

Chueh chu

), interspersed with commentary on the form and on Brutus’ trip to the People’s Republic of China in August-September 1973 for the Friendship Invitational Table Tennis Tournament. The poems, “taken from [Brutus’s] notes” (5), are presented in his distinct calligraphy, with same-page translations into Chinese by Ko Ching-Po. Eighteen of the

China Poems

are reprinted, without the translations and some of the notes, in

Stubborn Hope, “Victory Edition”

(Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1983. 75-9), which celebrated Brutus’s success in the…

523 words

Citation: McLuckie, Craig. "China Poems". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 March 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12233, accessed 29 March 2024.]

12233 China Poems 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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