Poet Wang Jiaxin to read for Katonah Poetry Series on March 9

KATONAH, N.Y. - On Sunday, March 9, the Katonah Poetry Series and Katonah Village Library are honored to present one of the most prolific writers in contemporary China, Wang Jiaxin. 

Few Chinese poets who have come to prominence after the Misty Poetry phenomenon of the early- to mid-1980s have cast a longer shadow than Wang Jiaxin. John Crespi, Director of Asian Studies at Colgate University, has extolled his work: “Wang’s poetic voice stands out for the gravity, clarity, and resolve with which it explores the individual’s relation to history, destiny, cultural inheritance, and humanity.”

The eminent poet, essayist, and translator and has published more than forty books. His collection of poems in English is Darkening Mirror (Tebot Bach, 2017), translated by Diana Shi and George O’Connell, with a foreword by former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass. His poems have been published in The American Poetry Review and The Kenyon Review, and he has been a poet-in-residence at the Dutch Literary Foundation (Amsterdam, 2022) and at the the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa (2013). An esteemed translator of Yeats, Mandelstam, and especially of Paul Celan, he has also translated books by American poets Jean Valentine and Ilya Kaminsky into Chinese. He has won many domestic and international awards, including the inaugural Ai Qing Poetry Award (2023).

Wang Jiaxin was a professor at Renmin University of China for years—he now divides his time between New York and Beijing. He has led a translation workshop at the Hudson Valley Writers Center, lectured and read at Walt Whitman’s birthplace, and a number of American and Canadian Universities.

The reading will begin at 4 p.m. at the Katonah Village Library, 26 Bedford Rd, Katonah, NY 10536, and will be followed by a brief Q & A.

The Katonah Poetry Series has been showcasing the world’s best poets for more than 50 years. The series continues May 4, when they welcome Mark Wunderlich. Your donations ensure the continuity of their mission: bringing the world’s best poets here to read. Please donate here: tinyurl.com/mrycdm3u.