Prelude 序曲

Prelude is Xu Yue’s first book of poetry. The poems in this collection were written from 2007 to 2012. They are highly lyrical, and contain a deeply troubled voice. Xu Yue reveals a different reality in his poetry where he carries an ongoing dialogue with what he considers his poetic family members, such as Paul Celan. His pure lyricism is rarely seen in today’s poetry from China. Although he is not widely known due to the low profile he has maintained over the years, his work is highly regarded by the best poets in China.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“Xu Yue’s poems present a unique reality with a balance of life experience and emotional deviation, bring his poetic imagination as close as possible to the true meanings of existence.”—Zang Di臧棣 (poet, critic, and professor of poetry at Peking University)

“Xu Yue’s poetry is pure and clean like praying. But it’s also highly crafted on the other hand. From the precise outline of his life experience with touchable Contextualization, makes good use of abrupt cutting and shifting and thus creates a strong sense of symbolic atmosphere. This is not simply due to his personal literary temperament, but also some artistic consciousness. His writing is aiming towards the current time, but at the same time forming a dialogue with the literary tradition represented by Mandelstam, Celan, Tranströmer and others, which brings an unusual sense of time and space in a profound way. Through his writing he has gained a unique position indispensable among poets of his own generation.”—Jinag Tao姜涛 (Editor of New Poetry Review)