Monday, 4:00 p.m.
Novelist and poet Wang Ping read from her work. She'd been born in China and she came to the United States in 1985. Her collection of short stories is American Visa; her novel is Foreign Devil; her books of poetry are Of Flesh and Spirit and The Magic Whip. Aching for Beauty is about footbinding in China. She edited New Generation: Poetry from China Today.
When Wang Ping spoke, she spoke very softly, the melodious notes; and behind her guitarist Jesse Katzman played softly, the melodious notes.
"How our tears broke like partridge eggs...."
"Venus shines - a lighthouse for stars...."
"Tangled love in the teeth of fate...."
"The fire has never died in my temple. Love is there, if you see it...."
"... a notion begins with the drop of rain...."
"Memory holds us to this world...."
"I travel every summer to China, to go to the countryside.... A young girl told me her story.... You had stars in your eyes when you were born, my mama said before she closed her eyes. She was 35.... She was the first one of us to leave the Cold Mountains.... Getting married at 15, nursing babies, getting old in her 20s - school is the key, Mama said.... How she wept when she left, the pretty doe-eyed teacher.... The starlight never died in my eyes, Mama. I will go to school...."
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