The Ruined Elegance Poems Princeton Series Of Contemporary Poets Fiona Szelorrain by Fiona Sze-lorrain 9780691167503, 0691167508 instant download after payment.

A lyrical collection that explores the interplay between poetry & history

In her new collection, Fiona Sze-Lorrain offers a nuanced yet dynamic vision of humanity marked by perils, surprises, & the transcendence of a "ruined elegance." Through an intercultural journey that traces lives, encounters, exiles, & memories from France, America, & Asia, the poet explores a rich array of historical & literary allusions to European masters, Asian sources, & American influences. With candor & humor, each lyrical foray is sensitive to silence & experience: "I want to honor / the invisible. I'll use the fog to see white peaches." 

There are haunting narratives from a World War II concentration camp, the Stalinist Terror, & a persecuted Tibet during the Cultural Revolution. There are also poems that take as their point of departure writings, paintings, sketches, photographs, & music by Gu Cheng, Giorgio Caproni, Bonnard, Hiroshige, Gao Xingjian, Kertész, & Debussy, among others.

Grounded in the sensual, these poems probe existential questionings through inspirations from nature & the impermanent earth. Described by the Los Angeles Review of Books as "a high lyricist who refuses to resort to mere lyricism in order to articulate her experience," Sze-Lorrain renews her faith in music & poetic language by addressing the opposing aesthetics of "ruins" & "elegance," & how the experience of both defies judgment.

Fiona Sze-Lorrain is a fiction writer, poet, musician, translator, & editor. She writes & translates in English, French, & Chinese. She is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Rain in Plural (Princeton, 2020) & The Ruined Elegance (Princeton, 2016), & fifteen books of translation. A finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize & the Best Translated Book Award among other honors, she was a 2019–20 Abigail R. Cohen Fellow…