Rhapsody in Black: Poems
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The poetry of Jidi Majia is deeply grounded in the myths and oral traditions of the Nuosu minority. It evokes times past but also speaks with eloquence of our global moment. Replete with cultural textures and local idiom, the poems provide an exquisite opening into the Nuosu world. In their ethnic richness, they also resonate with the voices of the indigenous and the dispossessed, from Native American and South American Indian poets to the African American and aboriginal Australian writers preserving and reshaping cultural identity.
Jidi Majia’s voice sounds the depths of natural, cultural, and spiritual reality. In his poem “Voice of the Bimo,” the power of a Nuosu ritualist’s expression is reflected in his own:
In tones both human and divine, it uttersA praise song for birth and death
When it invokes sun, stars, rivers, and ancient heroes
When it summons deities and surreal powers
Departed beings commence their resurrection!
The poems in this volume broaden and deepen our experience of the world—Jidi Majia’s and our own.
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Award-winning Chinese poet Jidi Majia is the author of more than twenty collections of poetry, published in several languages. He is vice president of the China Poetry Association.
Denis Mair has translated the work of numerous Chinese poets into English, including the volumes Reading the Times: Poems of Yan Zhi and Selected Poems by Mai Cheng.
Simon J. Ortiz, an Acoma Pueblo Indian, is a poet, lecturer, and writer whose collection of poems Going for the Rain won a Pushcart Prize.
