In layers of memory and language, Shao Wei's poems reveal a world imbued with the dreamlike quality of a fairytale. This collection constitutes a journey-first full of a little girl's questions and small passions, then the longings and losses of brave adulthood in a strange land-that leads us from a town along the shores of the Yangtze River to the busy streets of New York City.
"This poetry is humorous, magical, sad, and sometimes strangely beautiful. And sad in a very familiar way, as if we were partly living in the lost East Sichuan province of Shao Wei's childhood, partly lost among the living in New York. But there is wild joy here, too, hidden like the child Shao Wei in her grandfather's rice container."-Jean Valentine
"Shao Wei writes of her childhood with rueful humor and tenderness. At the same time, there can be no doubt as to the profound seriousness with which she approaches the original dream of poetry. . . . Surrealistically inventive, exuberant, generous, and mysterious, this is a book to treasure and learn from." -Jane Cooper
"An exciting new voice from the Yangtze River. Pulling a Dragon's Teeth has a sound that is bold and musical, and it has a narrative seamlessly woven with wild imagination."-Wang Ping
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1.0 out of 5 stars
I felt like it was my own teeth being pulled...,
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This review is from: Pulling A Dragon'S Teeth (Pitt Poetry Series) (Paperback)
Sorry, but I'm completely unimpressed. Unlike a previous reviewer, I found this one a complete no-go. Some of her poems are simply clumsy and juvenile, like something a teenager would write: 'I am at the age of 100 / I still think about what "nostalgia" was / I still can't feel "the cold moon", or being abandoned / (...) How I love to open my fish mouth and recite a poem / from [the?] Tang Dynasty / Ah ah ah ... ah ah ah ah / Ah ah ah ah ... ah ah ah' --- page 37. Nostalgia + feelings + moon + abandonment + that sort of silly orgasmic cry at the end = hardly memorable lines, I should think.
Other poems are so smug and politically predictable as to be annoying --- a neighbor threatens: 'if I find out that [my rooster] loses a single feather, / your antirevolutionary family will be in trouble...' (page 12), and the author says about her grandfather: 'you bought a house for your parents / and became the first capitalist on Xinglong Jie / (...) What a shame to be rich while the majority was poor' (page 38). The latter is probably an attempt at irony, but it comes out as lame. And, sadly for the grandfather she so obviously loves, she just makes him sound silly: 'You dreamed of the American president / telling him to take care of your proud kid' (page 39). Yeah, right. I don't see anything here except an immature and navel-gazing work --- but then again, there's a blurb by Ha Jin (whose book 'Waiting' has got to be one of the most overhyped, genuinely bad novels of the recent past) on the back cover, so I can't say I wasn't warned...
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Journey from China to Manhattan,
This review is from: Pulling A Dragon'S Teeth (Pitt Poetry Series) (Paperback)
I want the world to know us, not just because of the new Three Gorges Dam, Beijing or Shanghai. ~Shao Wei
Shao Wei was once a young child dreaming by the Yangtze river. She contemplated her future at a young age and decided she would become a writer. She became a voracious reader and fed her curiosity about the world through books. After living in Wanxian City, east of Sichuan Province, she moved to New York City. Here she was thrown into a new life and found solace in writing about her surroundings. She earned her master's degree in creative writing. She now teaches English composition. This is her first poetry collection in English. Shao Wei's poetry is at times beyond imaginative, infused with magic and often feels musical. Musical in the way her words entice you to read an entire poem, not stopping until the last word. In the beauty of her writing, a subtle dissatisfaction sometimes appears that seems to represent a intense desire for a place that is anywhere but here. Her words can at times be the meanderings of a discontented mind that is seeking to find contentment in a river of words. In "Manhattan" she turns the overwhelming into a dreamy place of wild animals and ancient mysteries. Many of her poems speak of an unspeakable loneliness and a desire to belong to a demanding planet, demanding its own space, not to know her dreams. The moon is always big when I feel lonely I measure the distance between us everyone is busy earning a living no time to care about a girl and her dreams I loved "The Absent Goodbye," because it reminded me of my grandmother's room that was like the nest in her house. She also left in her sleep and this poem has a certain warmth I could relate to, although it was written about Shao Wei's grandfather. In the next poem, "Dear Death" there is an almost sorrowful, yet blatant sarcasm. It is hopelessness drenched in longing and reluctant resolution. Wei expresses her desire to be taken with all those she has lost. She says: "If you take them away from me, why don't you take us all?" Her writing often speaks to the reader with the voice of an inner child who remembers the past in vivid images. "A Fairy Tale" begins with images of a lonely girl tasting sugar and quickly evolves into a story of lonely ecstasy and eternal contemplation. She seems to fear living a life without purpose. The amusing story about rice, fond memories of planting a peach tree and the almost symbolic tasting of her first apple all make this book of poetry a satisfying and comforting read. ~The Rebecca Review
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