In collaboration with Hong Ai Bai, 2010-2016

Subseries I.A.3., In collaboration with Hong Ai Bai, documents John Digby’s partnership with linguistic scholar and English professor Hong Ai Bai in the poetic translation of classical Chinese poetry using their “improvisatory” method. From roughly 2010-2016, the pair produced over twenty Feral Press publications utilizing this technique that moved away from literal translation of ancient text and instead adapted poetry using a threefold process of “imitation, imagination, and modernization.” “Imitation” involved recreating the literal words, meaning, and structure of the poems, while “Imagination” contextualized the work through analysis of the author’s life and culture. “Modernization,” in turn, contemporized the language of the work and sought to produce a “living-poem,” that might have been written in present-day America.

The subseries includes proofs, drafts and layouts, collages, research materials, notes, publicity materials and ephemera related to the publications, all of which were published by The Feral Press. The Tang-era and later classical poetry selected by the collaborators for adaptation largely centered on topics of gender (primarily in regard to the life of women during the Tang dynasty); horses; tea; birds; the moon; and the Chinese “Cold-Food Festival.”

The subseries also contains two essays by Hong Ai Bai further explaining the idea of improvisatory translation: “Chinese Poems: Untranslatable? Then Let’s Improvise,” and “Improvising Chinese Classical Poems to Contemporary English Readers.” Also included is John Digby’s essay, “Coming to Chinese Poetry,” in which he explains his own relationship to the poems.

Along with copious research about Chinese poetry in the form of web printouts and notes, the subseries also contains research, notes, and improvisations associated with individual Chinese poets, arranged by author name.