Women of the Red Plain: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Women Poets

These 101 poems by 32 contemporary Chinese women (most of them selected by the Chinese editor in Beijing) are discouraging for a myriad of reasons. Generally the speakers indulge in cliches and sentimental posturing (``Gazing at the great expanse of swirling mists and waves, / I fall on my knees, awed by the sea's grandeur. . . .''). Samples of the old-style socialist realism (``Today, tractors dash across the field / A thousandfold more efficient than the hoe!'') are intermingled with writing that addresses contemporary political trends using similarly hackneyed phrases and diction (``Know /That men never feel guilty for what they've done to women. . . .''). Traditional imagery is ladled out mechanically without any attempt to transform it (``On an autumn day I stroll along a reedbank. / The river, a silvery brocade, flows slowly on. . . .''). The translator's preface acknowledges the amateur quality of much of the writing and then attempts to validate the project: `` . . . be they flawed or accomplished, these voices speak to us of their genuine feelings, thoughts, fears, and aspirations. . . .'' In truth, the ``feelings, thoughts, fears, and aspirations'' of these women are buried in the formulaic banality of the work. (Apr.)