As part of a national tour presented by Copper Canyon Press to mark the publication of Push Open the Window, a contemporary Chinese poetry anthology bringing together over a hundred poems by some of China’s most important poets born after 1945, Xi Chuan and Zhou Zan, two of China’s leading poets will be visiting Iowa City for a bilingual reading today, 8 pm, at the Shambaugh House.

Zhou Zan, a native of Jiangsu Province, born in 1968, has published poems, criticism, and a translation of Margaret Atwood’s poetry. Editor of the prominent women’s poetry journal Wings, she was recently a visiting scholar at Columbia University.

Xi Chuan was born Liu Jun in 1963, and is the author of many prize-winning collections of poetry, essays, and translations. The editor of Dangdai Gouji Shitan (Contemporary Poetry International) and a past participant in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, he has been a visiting professor at New York University and at the University of Victoria. He teaches classical Chinese literature at Beijing Central Art Academy.

On Friday October 7th, at 10 AM, professor of modern Chinese literature Jennifer Feeley and poet Christopher Merrill will open up a public conversation with the poets. Both events will take place at the Shambaugh House (430 N. Clinton).

This anthology is part of an international literary exchange between the National Endowment for the Arts and the General Administration of Press and Publication in the People’s Republic of China. More info...