《诗歌的坟墓》（2019）@郭警Spittoon双语文学杂志第8期终于付梓了......我们在隧道的另一端醒来，几乎难以相信经历过的一切。现在是五月，大风吹拂，雨水丰饶，云彩多得难以形容。多亏我们的坚持与守望，现在可以拿出这些珍贵的文字，在阳光下开始阅读了。（欲知更多详情，参见我们的网站：..)Inside the pages of Volume 8, you will find poems from 张枣 Zhang Zao, a renowned, revolutionary, and formally inventive poet who believed that “poetry must transform one’s self and life.” We’ve also included excerpts from a true visionary, 苇岸 Wei An—known as the Chinese Thoreau for his intimate writings of solitude and witness to nature. Though these writers have left us, we feel that their work continually resounds in the calls we feel so urgently today: to give our attention to the natural world, and to constantly interrogate the limits of language and what it allows us to say. There are also heartrending and innovative stories from two of the heavy-hitters of Chinese-language sci-fi: the pioneering 郝景芳Hao Jingfang and Taiwanese master 伊格言, who exemplify the unique ways their genre can speak to both the mysteries of the human mind and the intricacies of our worldly relationships. Also, we are proud and delighted to publish the final chapters of Li Tang 李唐’s magical “The Town at the End of the World”, a story we’ve loved for the past two volumes; all the while, its subtle, delicate beauty has never waned. The two other fiction writers we’ve chosen to feature also edify the surreal paths that thinking takes to get to reality. 沈大成 Shen Dacheng’s seemingly simple tale of a pet-owner relationship gone sour reveals the innate deceptions, illusions, and conceits in both love and hatred, while 陈春成 Chen Chuncheng’s surreal tale of a cloud snipper uses absurdities to investigate the driving force of our passions. Of the contemporary poets, we’ve gathered the intricate, metaphysical poems of 朱朱 Zhu Zhu; the kaleidoscopic, strikingly visual verse of 范雪 Fan Xue; the intimate and almost secret work of 春树 Chun Shu; and the mythical, understatedly epic texts of 王敖Wang Ao. All are formidable in their own right, manifesting singular conceptions of what poetry is capable of, and representing the formidable capacities of language when it meets idea. We are also honored to feature the work of Beijing artist 郭警 Guo Jing, whose unnerving and oddly serene paintings hover on that precipice between real and unreal, subverting common scenes to reveal impactful truths about the nature of seeing. I loved “The Tomb of Poetry,” which graces our cover, immediately upon seeing it. Its shocking simplicity opens up a whole world of imaginings, and the same goes for every single one of his sublime pieces.——Xiao Yue Shan 单小月
Spittoon is a literary arts collective with branches throughout China. Our monthly events include poetry and fiction readings, workshops, storytelling evenings, a book club and a music and poetry event called 'Spittunes'. We publish regular features such as Spittoon Monthly on https://spittooncollective.com. Spittoon Literary Magazine, our print and online journal brings Chinese literature in translation to readers of English (www.spittoonlitmag.com).
